


eternity

by astroblemish



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alien/Human Relationships, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Thieves, M/M, Multi, NaNoWriMo 2017, Polyamory, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-02 21:56:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 67,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12735111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astroblemish/pseuds/astroblemish
Summary: Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are hired to steal an ancient artifact from the hull of a cargo ship, but instead they find Jongdae --a mysterious alien calling itself ahumanwho's very, very far from home, and is now stuck as the unasked-for third member upon their ship. This could be a problem.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's called eternity because that's how long it took for me to write this *baddum tss*
> 
> dedicated to my prompter, E, as a belated part of my revenge plot  
> of course you had no idea it was me who claimed your prompt (altho u might've guessed eventually) so uh. rip. i'm sorry i couldn't do it justice like it deserved :(
> 
> a big thank you to the mods for being the Actual Best Mods Ever. i probably wouldn't have finished this if i didnt feel like i owed it to you two and everything you did for everyone in this fest, so thanks for unknowingly pushing me to finish the longest fic i've ever written, and also for giving me 1600 years worth of extensions *finger guns*
> 
> another important thank you to all the friends who dealt with my whining, because there was a whole fucking lot of that and i'm sorry that you dealt with it. thank you for letting me continue to whine and be overly dramatic in peace, and for cheering me on and encouraging me to continue writing and reminding me that i was, in fact, doing amazingly, sweetie.
> 
> so, without further ado, [lame drumroll as curtains rise]

In all honesty, this could be going better.

Not that it was going too badly, but still; Kyungsoo had worked better jobs.

Namely: jobs where Baekhyun wasn't seducing the security guard, and forcing Kyungsoo to listen to him do it.

“You must work out a _lot_ ,” Baekhyun purrs, and Kyungsoo would puke if he wasn’t currently stuck in an air shaft that was barely wider than his shoulders, knowing that only _he_ would have to deal with the consequences of his own vomit. Kyungsoo’s sides hurt from chafing against the vent’s walls, and his ragged breathing seems to echo on for eternity. He’s still about another five minutes away from the target location, which means another five minutes of torture to listen to.

“You could say that,” comes the security guard’s chuffed voice through the comm in Kyungsoo’s ear. “Important guards like me… they need to be tough, y’know? To deal with the terrors out there.”

“Oh, Abso- _lutely_ ,” Baekhyun agrees, voice dropping down to his lower, self-acclaimed 'sexy' register. Kyungsoo rolls his eyes, and sincerely hopes that Baekhyun can empathetically feel him doing it. “I can’t even imagine what sort of big, bad, scary monsters must try to break in.”

This time, Kyungsoo can’t help but snort, hoping that the sound doesn’t echo well enough for the night guard to hear. Baekhyun’s done the usual _I’m new here and got lost_ and the amoeban manning the docks is none-the-wiser. Serves them right for hiring a giant _blob_ to man the night shifts --amoebans don’t even have brains.

Kyungsoo reaches the target location as the coordinates flicker across the lens of his robotic eyes, and he huffs in relief, gently prying the vent open to drop into the floor space below. He shuts his living eye, just in case there are any lasers or traps, and there’s nothing.

In fact, traps wouldn’t even be a problem compared to this.

“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo warns, finger against the shell of one of his ears. “We have a problem.”

There’s no giveaway that Baekhyun can hear him on the other end, because he’s still ‘undercover’, but Kyungsoo knows he can, anyway, even as Baekhyun laughs flirtatiously at something lame the amoeban had said.

“The artifact,” Kyungsoo continues, irrelevant to Baekhyun’s insistent flirting on the other end. “There’s no way I can carry this.”

And it’s not exactly a lie. Kyungsoo should’ve known Lu Han had been full of shit from the moment he’d sent them on a goose chase to a damn cargo ship docking in at Omega 9. Kyungsoo had expected some fancy gemstone or old-ass ball being shipped off to some museum or something when he'd said _artifact_ , not… this.

 _This_  being a metal box about three times Kyungsoo’s height, and three times his width, too.

Even the box itself isn’t going to fit in their tiny, two-man ship, Kyungsoo thinks, not even if they take out Baekhyun’s obnoxious memorabilia from the cargo bay.

“We’re gonna need a crowbar, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo decides, appraising the box while circling its perimeter, noting the identical, detail-less appearance of each face. They’ll just have to take out whatever’s inside, and pray to the three gods that it’s a more practical size. “A… really, really big crowbar.”

Baekhyun’s still flirting mindlessly on the other end, and then there’s a thump, a lapse of silence, and a characteristic sigh.

“Let me just pull the crowbar out of my ass, then,” Baekhyun huffs, and Kyungsoo smiles as he waits until the door behind him slams open as Baekhyun stands with twisted lips, staring at the giant metal box.

“So?” He prompts, pointing. “This it?”

“It’s either that or the other giant ancient artifact in the room,” Kyungsoo deadpans, Baekhyun huffing a stray strand of hair from his face.

“Even though it’s large, I feel underwhelmed,” Baekhyun admits, staring up at the box with his hands on his hips. His lips twitch. “That’s what she said.”

“Did you just ‘that’s what she said’ yourself?” Kyungsoo asks, mildly disgusted. Baekhyun shrugs unapologetically.

“How are we even going to get this baby on the ship?” Baekhyun continues, patting the metal box. It echoes with dull thuds. “It’s a little bit bigger than what we’re used to.” Baekhyun blinks, grinning. “That’s what she said.”

Kyungsoo just sighs with a pointed _ugh_ , pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I was thinking we should open it,” he says, running his hand over the surface of the box and enjoying the light screech of metal on metal, even as the ears on top of Baekhyun’s head flicker in annoyance. “Maybe whatever’s inside is smaller.”

Baekhyun smirks. “That’s what--”

“If you say ‘that’s what she said’ one more time I’m shoving my fist up your ass.”

“I’m only into that when it’s consensual,” Baekhyun retorts smoothly, and _gods_ , does Kyungsoo’s suffering ever end? “But you know, I’d be interested to see what it feels like with a metal fis--”

“Stop talking,” Kyungsoo snaps, as he presses his ears against the box. He hadn’t been hearing things, then, even over Baekhyun’s obnoxious _everything_. “It’s… humming.”

“Humming?”

“Humming.” Kyungsoo reaffirms, and sure enough, he can hear it more steadily now, like a quiet, vibration of sorts. “Tell me what it feels like.” He says, and gestures for Baekhyun to stand in the same spot.

“Well, it is humming,” Baekhyun agrees, as his ears twitch. “And it’s… cold,” he adds, in realisation. “Like, really fucking cold.”

Kyungsoo frowns at his metal hands, and then at the metal box. Just what is inside this, and why?

“Now I really want to open it,” Baekhyun mutters, and something in his golden eyes sharpen as he appraises the huge box, almost hungry in his own curiosity. “Maybe it’s a surprise ice cream cake.”

“A really fucking big one,” Kyungsoo mumbles, and runs his hands over the edges of the box, looking for some kind of crease, crack, hinge, opening, _anything_. His prosthetic arms ensure that Kyungsoo cannot feel the coldness of the box, but if he focuses hard enough, he can imagine that he can, the way it would bite the tips of his fingers and cause condensation to gather.

“Well, how do we open it?” Baekhyun prompts, tails flicking impatiently. He really is like a cat when he gets like this, all antsy and stuff --even if Baekhyun would kill Kyungsoo just for making the comparison; or try to, anyway.

“Maybe you should just ask it nicely,” Kyungsoo comments dryly.

“Don’t start with the attitude young man,” Baekhyun chides, and begins searching the surface of the box much the same, for any kind of opening. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

Kyungsoo doesn’t respond to that.

“Open sesame!” Baekhyun demands, with his arms spread out, deflating when nothing happens. “Well, that’s disappointing.”

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes --or at least, the still living one, while the robotic implants stay fixed in his head. Licking his lips, it becomes apparent that the box won’t open from the sides, which only means one thing.

“Hey, careful!” Baekhyun shouts, as Kyungsoo crouches down and lets his prosthetic legs leap until he’s standing on top of the box, landing with a heavy metallic thud. The box doesn’t even sway, but from where he’s standing Kyungsoo can see a faint crack around the edge of the lid, running along the sidelines. Baekhyun smirks. “Still need that crowbar?”

Kyungsoo doesn’t grace him with an answer, digging his metal fingers into the crease and prying the metal open. It bends easily, beneath his palm, and cold air slips out in a thick fog, Kyungsoo quickly pulling his hands back so the metal doesn’t freeze. Once it seems safer to touch, Kyungsoo continues ripping the lid back, until the walls seem to disconnect altogether, falling backwards. Kyungsoo quickly jumps off before they can tip all the way, and he lands on the ground in a swift swoop while Baekhyun squeaks and avoids the four giant metal slates as they clatter to the ground in a loud cacophony.

“Well,” says Baekhyun, appraising the object inside. “That doesn’t look like a cake.”

Kyungsoo grunts, rolling his shoulder, but it’s not in disagreement. Whatever had been inside is… strange, to say the least, a large, round, blue pod of some kind, barely taller than Kyungsoo. It’s clearly ice cold, since the glass is frosted and the air around it curls with fog, but the base is silver and sturdy, humming faintly, as if it's... on.

“I’ll grab the ship,” Baekhyun quips helpfully, but Kyungsoo is too stunned into silence to reply, running his hands along the strange pod. It feels… alive, somehow, even though it’s made of glass and frozen solid, and Kyungsoo frowns, because that can’t be right.

It just can’t be.

 

 

 

 

 

It takes careful maneuvering to get the odd pod-thing onto the hover trolley, and as they pass the night guard he moans, once, while Baekhyun easily blows him a little kiss before jogging off to move the ship closer to the docks. Kyungsoo resists the urge to groan.

 _The Moonlight_ is definitely a tiny ship, but the pod’s relatively small size means it fits into the entryway quite neatly, Baekhyun complaining about getting out of Omega 9 before bothering to move it into the cargo bay. That’s fine with Kyungsoo though, for once, because keeping it in the entryway means he can keep an eye on it as he pilots away from the tiny, dumpster planet, before any further authorities come.

Without being told to, Baekhyun easily kicks his feets up and opens communications with Lu Han, the dial tone chiming in the background while Baekhyun’s nine tails sway behind him lazily.

“Mission success,” Baekhyun tells Lu Han as soon as he picks up, yawning. “What’s the delivery point?”

“Cyrillia 5,” Lu Han answers almost immediately, and Kyungsoo and Baekhyun tense in unison. “I’ll send over more details once you’re closer to the drop-off point.”

“Um,” Baekhyun interrupts. “What the fuck?”

Kyungsoo is inclined to agree. Cyrillia 5 is a planet on the outer rim of the milky way, taking several loops’ travel to get there, past a whole onslaught of things Kyungsoo doesn’t even want to consider --most of them deadly.

“Like I said, the pay is worth it,” Lu Han answers flippantly, fiddling with something in the background.

“Credits aren’t really that useful if we’re dead?” Baekhyun replies, blinking innocently while his ears twitch on top of his head.

“Not even five million of them?” Lu Han replies, and Baekhyun freezes.

“...Each?” Kyungsoo asks carefully, squinting at the holo screen. Lu Han grins.

“Each.” He responds, and Baekhyun exchanges a glance with Kyungsoo. Well, they don’t have to be told twice.

“In that case,” Kyungsoo says. “What the hell did we just steal?”

After all, it’s not like the docking site had been high security --the ship itself had simply been a cargo ship to fly out the next morning after having spent the day being loaded. It shouldn’t have held more than a bit of food and some random other tidbits from other planets, so what exactly did they take that could be so pricey, when the first part was so simple? Lu Han always takes a cut for himself, and at the end of the day, they’re probably not even being paid its full value for the pick-up and delivery, which just makes Kyungsoo nervous even further. Then again, they _are_ going to Cyrillia 5, so maybe it’s just compensation for the deadly journey thing.

Yeah, that had to be it.

“No fucking clue,” Lu Han replies, smiling. “But try to keep it in one piece, yeah?”

The holo screen snaps shut as Lu Han hangs up, and Kyungsoo is left blinking into space, stunned, as Baekhyun just stretches lazily.

“Take over, would you?” Kyungsoo asks, and Baekhyun shrugs as they switch places, not willing to put it on auto-pilot until they’re in the outer quadrants, where they’re less likely to encounter... trouble. Baekhyun lazily flicks the radar on as Kyungsoo walks towards the pod and stares at it, frowning. The fact that it’s worth so much but seems so… useless… doesn’t help to smother his curiosity, and in the clearer halogen lighting of the ship Kyungsoo runs his hands over the surface, tracing his fingertips along the glass and crouching to examine the base.

It’s clearly set out like a stand, with four prongs sticking outwards to keep it upright, while the glass pod sits on top of it like a podium. There seems to be something written along the bottom, but Kyungsoo doesn’t recognise the language, shutting his living eye.

 _LANGUAGE: UNKNOWN_ flashes the reader of his mechanical eyes. No translation there, then.

“There’s something on the top,” Baekhyun says suddenly, causing Kyungsoo to jump and then glare at him because Baekhyun had _one job_. “Relax, Soo, we’re way out of the residential quarter.”

Kyungsoo’s unconvinced, but Baekhyun is adamantly ignoring his glaring in that certified Baekhyun-way of his, tip-toeing to look at the top of the pod. The thing is taller than Kyungsoo, but shorter by Baekhyun, if only just, as Baekhyun leans forward and,

“I wonder what happens when I--” there’s a hiss, a click, and a beep, and suddenly air is rushing out of the pod, causing mist to shoot out across the floor as both Kyungsoo and Baekhyun quickly step back, tensing. The glass begins to defog, slowly, revealing some sort of dark blue substance beneath, and when Kyungsoo steps forward there seems to be something behind that too, obscured, something--

\--like a face…?

“What the actual fuck?” Kyungsoo says, and then the pod opens.

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing Jongdae notes, is that he’s really, really fucking cold.

Like, dick-all-shrunken type of cold.

Speaking of dicks, he’s also naked, gathering by the lack of of clothes on his body, but covered in something oddly slimy that feels like… jell-o, on every inch of skin.

No, more than that, it’s _in his nostrils and his lungs_ , so Jongdae coughs and snorts violently to get it out, struggling to move his arms as it’s also encased in the jelly-like substance. His eyes are stuck together too, eyelids too weak to move, so Jongdae lurches forward until he hits air, hacking all over again. His vision is blurred beyond relief when he manages to pry his eyes open, and everything is so bright it _hurts_ as he quickly rips an arm from the jell-o to hold it over his eyes, groaning.

Slowly, Jongdae blinks until his eyes have adjusted further, and everything carefully comes into focus as he realises there are two… _somethings_ watching him, which Jongdae doesn’t even know how to label, because they’re definitely not human.

 

 

“Å̴̛̩̈́̂̋̀̿̆͌̄́̂̕s̶̛̬̝̣̗͔̣͍̤̹͎͔̥̜̭̀̒̇̌̃̎̀͐͛͌͗͑̚͝ͅ,̶̨̢̤̝̮̲͋͜͜f̴̧̙̫̘̭̣̰̺̯̖̪̼̈́̋̈́͐̄͐̑̇̎̂̀̊͝s̵̢̢̙̥̥̣̈́̅͊͆̑̊͐͋ḏ̴͂̉̐̋̿̃͑̕̚j̷̯̘̖̗̯͚̜͕͕͒͜f̴̨̯̪̜̫͈̼͎̺̪̐̎̅̓̓̇̈́̽͐̑͌̅̿͜?” One of them asks, and Jongdae _screams_.

 

 

Stumbling backwards only causes him to hit the gelatin again, as Jongdae looks behind him and sees some sort of… glass coffin looking thing, with a clear imprint of his body in the gel where he’d once been. The thing that had asked the question tilts its head, golden eyes clearly questioning, and Jongdae only stumbles to get away from it, his back eventually hitting the wall.

 

“d̷͋̓f̛̈́͋̓͋ͭ̒͢kͪ̓j̸ͥ̐͗̀ͯs̷̍̎̇d̡͑ͧͧ̽̅̾̽͠f̢ͧ̋͑͠.” Says the pink-one to the blue-one, a metal hand resting on its chest to hold the blue-one back. “K͏̧͖̠̲̣̙̣j̷͖̠̜̣͓̯̱̼̕͡h̠͖̯̺̳̲̲̼g̶̸̫̹̟̩̹̭n̜͔̞̩͍̬͠ͅͅf̧̢̜̲̰͔̩g҉͎̟h͏͎.”

 

“What the hell is going on?” Jongdae asks suddenly, blinking around at his surroundings. “Where am I?”

Unsurprisingly, the monsters give no response, only frowning at him, and when the blue one reaches out with a delicate, slim hand Jongdae flinches, trying to stay as far away as the monsters as possible. Slowly steadying onto his feet, Jongdae registers that he looks like he’s on a… movie set or something, like one of the Star Wars rides at Disneyland, with metal floors and walls and ceilings and what looks to be a cockpit of some description, staring into space.

Except it isn’t a movie set, Jongdae quickly realises, because this is _actual_ space, and the two things in front of him are _actual fucking aliens_.

“Oh my fucking god.” Jongdae says suddenly, and falls back down, right into the blue jelly pooled at his feet. This can’t be happening this-- this can’t be _real_.

The pink one manages to catch him in time, though, a metal hand around Jongdae’s forearm, and Jongdae blinks in speechless fear at the decidedly inhuman face staring back at him. Its skin is a soft pink colour all over, although its hair is short and dark, with two horns sticking from its forehead, one curving over its skull with rings pierced through it and the other broken by the base with a single ring around it, both black, two thin ears protruding from each side of its head. What’s most curious about the alien, however, is the way it seems half-flesh half-metal, with the left side of its face missing skin altogether, replaced by gunmetal with two red lenses staring at Jongdae, one smaller and placed in the centre of its forehead with the other mirroring its blinking eye, which is living and black the whole way across.

 

“j̈́̂͆ͥ҉ň̎f͑d̶̉d͌̋̽͜a͐̂̆ͧ҉l̸k̶̄͑ͪͯ̑s̸̆̆̌̏̆dͮ̑ͭ͋ͧͦ̚?̑” It says, almost gently, and Jongdae quickly snatches his hand back, holding his arm offendedly.

The blue one scoffs and says something to the pink one, who only frowns in answer, and then lightly pinches the blue alien’s shoulder in annoyance. It’s definitely a different species to the pink alien, with its body being covered in smooth, cream skin, long blue hair hanging over its head and braided along the sides and back, cat-like ears sitting on the top of its head. It seems to have eight --no, nine-- light blue tails swaying behind it, but they don’t seem to be covered in fur, smooth all over as they curl and flicker absentmindedly in the air.

The pink one snaps an order-like sounding command in their strange tongue, and the blue whines a little bit, pouting, before eventually sauntering off to the back of the ship. An actual fucking space ship.

Jongdae is in a space ship.

In space.

With _aliens_.

Holy fucking _god_.

The pink one asks something, and since Jongdae has disassociated a little due to shock, he’s kind of calmed down, convinced they’re not going to hurt him in anyway due to their placating demeanour, he shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he apologises. “I don’t understand.”

The pink alien frowns at this, and the blue one comes back rambling about something with slim, silver gun in his hand and what looks like… a single grain of rice, caught between his index finger and thumb.

 

“h̔ͧf̴̽͒̚͝jͧ̓̅͐̎ͤ͝҉h͗ͮͪ͞҉̵d͋͒ͧ͑ͩ̉̕͝ĺ̶̿͟k̷̵̏ͯ͒jͮ̌͂ͮ̽̋͆̀d̵́҉f̛̓̒ͤ̆͆͐ͮ̋̕͠ “ The pink one says, calmly, but Jongdae is unconvinced as he backs away, beginning to panic as the blue tentacle-like tails wrap around his wrists and ankles, holding him still. Oh god, what sort of weird alien shit are they going to do to him, or are they just going to _shoot_ him? Oh god oh god oh god.

Jongdae struggles to the best of his ability, shouting out complaints, demands, pleas, but the tails-slash-tentacles work as secure bindings as they turn him around so he’s pressed against the wall, a metal arm digging into the small of his back and travelling slowly up along the ridges of his spine, tracing the path.

“Please no no no no,” Jongdae cries out, desperately struggling against his restraints, but there’s a stab in the back of his neck, and searing white pain in his head so much it overwhelms all other thoughts.

When the pain stops ringing, it does so abruptly, and Jongdae is so disoriented by the sensation he crumples to the ground, no longer held up by the tentacles.

“Are you sure that’s where the brain is?’ Somebody behind him asks. “Like, what if its brain is in the other end?”

“How many species have their brains in their ass and not their head?” The other voice snaps, grunting. “Gods.”

“Well, you don’t even know it’s an ass,” the first voice counters.

“It’s a bipedal vertebrate, isn’t it?” The other counters. “Of course that’s going to be its ass. No vertical digestive system makes sense to have a mouth and an ass near each other--”

“It does if you’re a space-sponge, they only have one orific--” there’s the sound of metal ringing. “-- _Ow_.”

“They’re invertebrates, and they’re not even bipedal,” the deeper voice hisses, and the first voice whines in pain.

Jongdae groans, rubbing his palm against the side of his head.

“What are the side effects if you fuck up, anyway?” There’s a long pause.

“... I’m not sure.” The deeper voice comments, hesitant. “Nothing too severe, surely…?”

“What the hell?” Jongdae asks, as he manages to sit up and finally open his eyes, blinking at the two aliens.

Ah, right.

Aliens. Space ships.

Apparently it hadn’t all been a bad dream. Between all the pain he’d kind of forgotten that fact.

Huh.

“I guess it worked, then?” The blue one says, and Jongdae stares at its mouth like he can’t believe it. Probably because he can’t.

“ _What the fuck_?” He repeats, for the umpteenth time, and the blue alien grins down at him, showing a neat row of white, pointed teeth. “Please don’t eat me.” Jongdae squeaks.

The blue alien frowns. “Why would I eat you?” It asks, running its gold eyes up and down Jongdae’s body. “Uh no offense you’re like, 99% bone and could be poisonous.”

“I’m not poisonous,” Jongdae retorts, almost offended, and then wonders why he’s arguing if it means the blue one _isn’t_ going to eat him. “I mean--” he pauses. “--Wait, why can I understand you?”

“UTC,” the pink alien says, and Jongdae blinks at it. “The universal translator chip the--” it hesitates as Jongdae continues blinking dumbly at it. “The thing we injected into your neck.”

Jongdae brings a hand up to rub the back tip of his spine, where there’s a defining lump implanted clearly underneath the skin.

“Oh,” he says lamely. “That’s… cool.”

“You’re lucky we had some on hand,” the blue one scoffs, ignoring Jongdae’s evident lameness and crossing its arms over its chest. “Although Lu Han won’t be happy.” It mumbles.

“Uh... sorry?” Jongdae offers, to whoever --or maybe, _whatever--_ Lu Han is.

“What are you anyway?” The blue alien asks suddenly, tilting its head. “You’re so--” In most cases Jongdae would probably feel uncomfortable about two smooth hands running along his bare, jelly-covered abdomen, but he’s a little bit past the blatant numbness, at this stage. The blue alien pulls its fingers back, rubbing the substance off in disgust. “Eugh.”

“I’m Jongdae,” Jongdae blurts, at a lack for what else to say because-- well, aren’t they the aliens in this situation?

“What the hell is a Jongdae?” The blue one asks, and the pink alien merely shrugs, equally as lost.

“No I’m-- my name,” Jongdae says, slowly. “That’s my name.”

“Oh,” the blue alien says, ears flattening against its head. “I’m Baekhyun, and this is Kyungsoo.”

“Uh, nice to meet you,” Jongdae says, and then wonders what the fuck is his life. “Where are we, exactly...?”

“On a ship heading to the delta system,” Baekhyun answers, even if Kyungsoo seems clearly disgruntled about him offering up the information like it’s nothing.

“Ah,” Jongdae says, although he has no idea where that is. “That doesn’t happen to be near Earth, does it?”

“Earth…?” Baekhyun parrots, and blinks at Kyungsoo, who shrugs in return. “What’s that?”

They don’t know what Earth is…? Jongdae frowns; he can’t for the life of him remember _how_ he got here, and he can’t remember anything before that either, let alone why the fuck he’s covered in jell-o. His mind feels like a vacant space of mismatched thoughts and memories he’s misplaced, it’s impossible to recall anything past a basic sense of self-identity and common knowledge. He knows he’s Kim Jongdae, he knows that these two are aliens (which is _not_ a thing he thought were real until now), he knows that he’s human --Korean at that, to be specific. He knows that his favourite artists are Beyonce and 10cm, knows the English alphabet and how to write in Hangul, knows his favourite food is--

“Jongdae?” Kyungsoo prods gently, and Jongdae groans, holding his head against the onslaught of information that trickles through like a hundred waterfalls at once. Waterfalls, like the one Jongdae and his brother had played in, _brother_ , _Jongdeok--_ “Are you okay?”

“No,” Jongdae admits, and slumps against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain. “How did I get here?”

“You were in the thingy,” Baekhyun helpfully supplies, and gestures to the glass pod beside Jongdae. He opens his eyes, blinking, and examines the device, still cold to the touch, dark blue jelly slowly pooling along the base. He crouches, rubbing the substance between his fingers, and notices the engraving in hangul along the rim of the base, leaning forward to get a clearer look.

_Jongdae. May you find a better life than what I could give you._

He recognises the words, reads them without a second thought, but he has no idea who they’re from, what they mean, or what they’re referring to.

“What’s it doing!?” Baekhyun exclaims suddenly, disgusted, and Jongdae blinks at him, realising his eyes are wet, touching his cheeks and finding tears. “That thing, with its face, what the hell!?!?”

“I’m not sure,” Kyungsoo says slowly, and Jongdae sniffles, sobbing, once. He doesn’t even know why he’s crying, or who for --just that the words spring a well of untraceable sadness in his chest, and he can’t help it. Jongdae is suddenly struck with the realisation that he is very, very alone, but he isn’t sure _why_ he knows that. “Some sort of allergic reaction? A fight or flight response?”

“I’m fine,” Jongdae sniffs, and then wipes his nose on the back of his hand, laughing softly at his own reaction. He’s still covered in blue goo, his chest still hurts, but more than that he’s still just really fucking cold. “Sorry but-- do you have anything I can use to clean…?” He gestures to the jelly smeared across his skin.

“Of course,” Kyungsoo says gently, evidently sensing that Jongdae is distressed, placing a metal hand on the small of his back. It’s cold to the touch, but Jongdae is thankful for the contact all the same, leaning into it. “This way.”

 

The shower uses hot air, not water, Jongdae learns as he steps into the odd pod behind one of the bay doors, feeling the nozzle _blow_ all the jelly off of his body. It’s soothing, in an odd way, but Jongdae kind of misses water already. Also, he’s dehydrated as _fuck_ , as well as hungry, so that’s a thing.

Gingerly stepping out of the bathroom, Baekhyun is waiting for Jongdae where he sits on what Jongdae assumes to be his bed, lazily flicking his tails. He perks up the moment Jongdae steps out, and smiles widely, showing off his carnivorous rows of teeth. It’s interesting that even between _alien species_ , smiling is still very much a thing, but Jongdae is sort of horrified by Baekhyun’s teeth, so he kind of wants him to stop, too.

“You look a lot better without the weird substance on you,” he notes, Jongdae near-hypnotized by the sway of his tails. “I thought your species might secrete it, but I guess not.”

“No…” Jongdae agrees, at a lack of anything else to say, fidgeting. He’s a lot colder now that he’s experienced warmth and lost it, but more than that, he’s still butt fucking naked in what he guesses is Baekhyun’s bedroom, so. “Do you have… any clothes I could borrow?” He asks tentatively, already feeling kind of bad for mooching off of two random aliens but hey, it’s not his fault he woke up. Surely he’ll be able to pay them back somehow?

“Your species wears clothes?” Baekhyun asks, surprised, and Jongdae feels goosebumps raise across his skin as Baekhyun’s eyes rake over his body, slow and appreciative. “Why?” He questions, tilting his head as he steps forward and running one of his fingers down Jongdae’s arm curiously. “You’re so... _pretty_.”

Jongdae blushes, and again Baekhyun seems startled by this physical reaction, leaning in before Jongdae stumbles backwards, entirely too flustered.

“It’s also cold,” he blurts, cupping his dick while his face _burns_ because if he wasn’t self conscious before, he certainly is now. “So, um.”

Baekhyun shrugs, and moves to push out a panel by the wall, springing forth a rack with tons of clothing hanging off of it. Once Jongdae is dressed in the odd garments, loose fitting and uncomfortable, Baekhyun presses a button on back collar of the shirt, and suddenly the clothing shifts, reforming to his body until it’s snug against his skin, so perfectly-fitting Jongdae can’t even feel the clothing, running his fingers over the strange, ridge-covered material.

“What _are_ you anyway?” Baekhyun asks curiously, circling around Jongdae in a way that makes him feel like he’s being _hunted_ , continuously running his golden eyes up and down his body as he instinctively curls into himself a little. “I’ve never seen anything like you.”

“I’m human,” Jongdae answers, and Baekhyun ceases in his incessant circling, frowning. “What are you?”

“Kuhonian, _obviously_ ,” Baekhyun answers easily, and his ears flick in annoyance. “What the hell is a human? I’ve never heard of that species before. Which quadrant is your home planet located in?”

“Um,” Jongdae answers, stepping back, a little flustered by the way Baekhyun crowds towards him. “I don’t--”

“Baekhyun.” Kyungsoo says sternly, and Jongdae winces at the light behind him as the bay doors slide open to reveal him frowning disapprovingly from behind them, four thin ears -- _four_ \-- flicking briefly in agitation. “Leave Jongdae alone, would you? I’m sure it’s startled.”

“He,” Jongdae corrects instinctively. “I mean I-- I use... he…?”

“My mistake,” Kyungsoo apologises, and does some sort of strange hand gesture before bowing which has Jongdae indescribably flustered, waving his hands out as Baekhyun just rolls his eyes.

“Kyungsoo here is Drovaryian, so don’t mind the excessive politeness,” Baekhyun says, as if that’s meant to mean anything to Jongdae, at all. In fact, the idea that he’s actually on a spaceship, in space, with _aliens_ , is kind of a lot to deal with. That, on top of the point that he apparently came here encased in a gelatin pod, well, Jongdae’s thoughts aren’t exactly linear or sensical. Mostly it feels like a whole lot of numbing, white noise. Noticing the look on Jongdae’s face, Baekhyun says, “You… don’t know what a Drovaryian is, do you?”

Jongdae swallows. “Should I?”

Kyungsoo and Baekhyun exchange a look, and it makes Jongdae swallow all over again, noting how dry his throat is.

“I think I probably have a lot of questions and you do too,” Jongdae squeaks out, after too many minutes of silence and Baekhyun and Kyungsoo speaking to each other wordlessly. “But can we discuss it over food?”

They agree --again, between them, _silently_ \-- and they both walk towards the front of the ship, where Jongdae can now see the cockpit more clearly. It’s a wide, open space with the entirety of the universe poured out in front of the glass and yeah, cool, Jongdae isn’t going to think about that one any harder.

Kyungsoo pulls out a small container from one of the wall panels, and the food inside is somehow dry and wet all at once, tasting like nothing in particular, like oatmeal without any flavour. Jongdae picks at it with the metal spoon Kyungsoo had handed him, and blushes when he notes the way both Kyungsoo and Baekhyun stare at him, like eating is the most fascinating thing again.

“What _is_ that?” Baekhyun asks, and gestures vaguely to Jongdae’s face. “Why do you change colour?”

“It’s--” Jongdae says, and fumbles, because he’s a graphic designer --is he? Apparently-- not a _doctor_ ** _._ ** “--An embarrassment thing.”

“Oh,” Baekhyun says, adding, “It’s pretty.” On cue, Jongdae’s face turns redder, and Baekhyun grins delightedly like it’s the best thing he’s ever seen.

“How’s the food?” Kyungsoo cuts in, absentmindedly popping open a panel on his metal arm so that a… digital screen _projects_ out of it, and responds to the touches. Holy shit, it’s like nothing Jongdae’s ever seen --outside of movies and video games, either way.

And he kind of forgets Kyungsoo’s question in favour of staring, maybe gaping a little. Noticing, Kyungsoo gently shuts the panel so the screen disappears and carefully says, “Where are you from, again?”

“Which solar system?” Baekhyun clarifies, and Jongdae stammers.

“The um… sun?” He says, and the two aliens both exchange a look. “Mars. Venus. Jupiter, Saturn--” their faces are devoid of any recognition. “Pluto?”

“Something tells me you’re a long way from home,” Baekhyun says drily, and it hits Jongdae with the slow-crashing force of a truck, dropping the spoon into the oatmeal-stuff and staring at the tabletop. Just how far from home _is_ he, but more than that, does he have any hope of getting back?

“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo says, and Jongdae snaps back to attention. “It isn’t uncommon for slave traders to abduct from unsuspecting planets. You didn’t deserve this.”

 _Alien abduction_. The idea is so absurd Jongdae snorts before he can stop himself. Baekhyun is oddly quiet.

“How did you find me, then?” Jongdae asks, because Kyungsoo and Baekhyun don’t exactly give him _alien slave trader_ vibes.

“A planet not too far from here,” Kyungsoo answers, before Baekhyun’s mouth can even open the whole way. The answer seems weirdly nondescript, but god, this is so much to handle. Jongdae holds his head against the onslaught of information --both what Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are saying, and also the slow trickle of memories from life on earth. Memories he may never relive, people he might never see again, moments of his life taken from him because of fucking _alien abduction_.

_Jongdeok._

“Ah ah ah ah--” Baekhyun says frantically, splaying out his hands. “He’s leaking again, Kyungsoo, he’s _leaking--”_

Jongdae raises his fingertips to his cheeks and, again, they come back wet, but he can’t make sense of it. Jongdae _never_ cries, he knows this, so what’s got him so sad about a name he doesn’t even have a face to match that makes him so…

“It’s just a stress reaction,” Jongdae sniffs, and laughs nervously, brushing at his eyes as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo exchange their umpteenth look before giving Jongdae a worried one each. “I know I have more questions and--” he shakily exhales, calming himself in an attempt to stop fucking crying. “--you do too.” Jongdae wipes his nose on the back of his hand. “But I kind of just woke up on a spaceship and found out aliens exist and I think I need a nap.”

It’s exhausting now that Jongdae thinks about it, the weight of his eyelids, the stress of all the information. His head hurts and his body feels like it’s being torn apart, and more than that, he can’t _think_ straight, like every thought process is shrouded in a hazy fog that suffocates the chains of ideas and things he tries to make sense of. It’s impossible, like this, and Jongdae’s dizzy with it --he doesn’t think he can stand any more information overload than what he already has.

“Of course,” Kyungsoo says gently, and offers out a small metal hand to lead him down the hall. “Come on.”

 

With Jongdae asleep in Kyungsoo’s room, Baekhyun finally says, “What the fuck are we going to do?”

Kyungsoo blinks with his only living eye at Baekhyun for a few seconds, before saying, “About what?”

“Cut the shit Soo,” Baekhyun half-growls, and then calms himself, irked by his own instinct, breathing in deeply, and then continuing. “What the fuck are we meant to do with an undiscovered _species_?” Baekhyun asks, and then frowns. “We don’t deal with livestock, we're not cut out for that shit."

“I know,” Kyungsoo sighs, and runs a hand through his hair, avoiding his horns. “And, I _don’t_ know.” He bites his cheek, and softly, adds, “Five _million_ credits, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun laughs nervously. “This is so fucked up,” he says, leaning against the wall for a little balance. “And you lied to him.”

“He doesn’t even know aliens exist and you want me to tell him we _stole_ him from a random cargo ship?” Kyungsoo huffs drily.

“Well if we’re going to sell him off I don’t see why you care about being a gracious host,” Baekhyun snorts, and then, “Oh, right, Drovaryians. Nice even to their slaves.”

Kyungsoo’s nostrils flare, and it’s always oddly satisfying, Baekhyun thinks, to get him all riled up like this, forehead vein bulging and all beneath soft pink skin. Kyungsoo so rarely breaks out of his polite, detached shell, it’s all the more rewarding when he _does_ , although Baekhyun knows it’s not great of him to think as much.

“Would you rather I treat him like a prisoner?” Kyungsoo asks snidely, rhetorical, but Baekhyun remains silent. “Maybe it’s not Jongdae they’re after,” Kyungsoo continues once he’s cooled himself down, Baekhyun frowning momentarily because he hadn’t fully _snapped_. “Maybe it’s just the... pod thing.”

“Right,” Baekhyun says, snorting. The pod thing, _sure_. “Funny, Kyungsoo, ‘cuz you’re a lot of things, but you’re not naive.”

“What the fuck do you want me to _say_ , Baekhyun?” Kyungsoo hisses, and ah, there it is, the _snap_. “Lu wouldn’t have set us up with this shit if he’d known the artifact inside was alive _and_ sentient, which means our buyer lied or--”

“--Or Lu Han betrayed us for 10 million credits.” Baekhyun finishes, and Kyungsoo deflates, wordless in his thinking. Baekhyun can almost hear the mechanical whir as the lights along the edge of Kyungsoo’s temple, embedded both in metal and skin, flicker as he thinks himself into overdrive. Baekhyun sighs. “He wouldn’t do that to you.” Baekhyun should have said _to us_ , but it’s no secret he’s just Kyungsoo’s over-honoured plus one. He doesn’t have even a fraction of the connection to Lu Han that Kyungsoo does. “But if our buyer is lying to him about the cargo, they could be lying about the money too, Soo.”

Baekhyun’s right --for once-- and they both know it. Kyungsoo falls onto the pilot’s chair with a drawn-out sigh. Lu Han as their pimp of sorts --if space thieves have such a thing-- tends to work out, because he’s good with information and even better with people, sorting out the trustworthy buyers and sources from the less so. It’s possible someone slipped through Lu Han’s impeccable radar for this sort of bullshit, but after years of working with Kyungsoo --and _for_ Lu Han, by proxy-- Baekhyun finds it very, very difficult to believe that.

“Well, for now, we’re at least stuck in deep space with an illegal alien on our hands,” Kyungsoo says eventually, as if _illegal_ means anything to a duo of thieves. Baekhyun’s tails twitch. “And we have no fucking clue what he is. For all we know the dehydrated shlovastock I just gave him might poison him.” Although it was highly unlikely --most carbon-based lifeforms tended to need the same sorts of compounds, if not in different amounts; plus shlovastock was as basic in nutrients as it comes. Parallel evolution, without the common ancestor, et cetera et cetera --Baekhyun never had paid much attention during school.

“Well, we won’t be getting to Cyrillia 5 anytime soon,” Baekhyun comments. “Not with a third person mooching off our reserves.” Kyungsoo’s mouth twists in reluctant agreement. “So at least we have time to work it out, eh?”

“We can pitstop at Kotehedron,” Kyungsoo says, which --as Baekhyun draws a mental map of where they are right about now-- makes perfect sense. It’s the nearest and most reliable planet they’ll be able to reach before the run out of fuel, or worse, _food_. Kyungsoo bites his cheek, and his ears flicker, once. “Then I think we should pay Chanyeol a visit, get Jongdae examined, find out what he is and where he came from and why the fuck he’s out here.”

“And talk to Lu Han,” Baekhyun concludes, because they’re both thinking it, but Kyungsoo’s weird about saying certain things out loud, sometimes --only around Baekhyun, though. Then again, Baekhyun’s always around Kyungsoo, so.

“... That too.” He replies, eventually. Lu Han’s less prone to bullshit if he’s in your face, so much less to hide when a screen doesn’t cut off the rest.

“Then we can decide what to do with Jongdae.”

The fact that Kyungsoo might actually be _considering this_ , makes Baekhyun’s stomachs twist; all three of them. Simultaneously. They don’t _do_ live trade, that was never a part of the deal, and that’s _always_ been the deal--

But Baekhyun knows five million is more money than either of them can comprehend, enough to settle down, maybe, give up the high life.

Enough for Kyungsoo to break his bond.

Before he can even stop himself Baekhyun’s eyes flick to the small metal ring encircling the bottom half of Kyungsoo’s broken horn, but he tears his gaze away from it equally as fast, not wanting Kyungsoo to catch him. He had, anyway, given by the way his living eye has softened, but Baekhyun chooses to ignore it.

 

One would think that being a lucrative pair of space thieves would mean Baekhyun and Kyungsoo end up with a lot more credits, but, staring at the holo-screen in front of his face, Kyungsoo frowns at his bank account --one based in _Swisdervelt_ , of course, the only planet who gives a damn about customer confidentiality-- and all the zeroes there are; or maybe lack thereof. It’s hard to make profit when Lu Han takes a cut of it anyway, and there are so many larger, _better_ crews available for hire. Fact of the matter is, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo don’t make a whole fucking lot --at least not as much as they  _could_ \-- and even then, what little they do earn is funneled somewhere else. Kyungsoo into a twin-pair of bank accounts, and Baekhyun in little guilt packages back home, a _sorry-I-abandoned-you_ sort of thing.

(Kyungsoo knows Baekhyun hates Kuhonia and everything about it, but at least he has a place to send guilt money back to. Kyungsoo just has endless guilt and no one to ship it off on.)

Baekhyun had offered to man the cockpit while Kyungsoo had showered in Baekhyun’s room instead of his own --Jongdae has been asleep for nearly two whole cycles, which Kyungsoo finds ridiculous, because he’d been asleep when they’d woken him up to begin with.

There’s a pang at the bay door even if it’s Baekhyun’s own room, but Kyungsoo appreciates the politeness he’s grilled into Baekhyun since day one. Drovaryians, by nature, don’t really do the _disrespecting_ of private space, and Kuhonians, _by nature_ , barely even have a concept of it. It should, by all means, turn a ship with nothing but the company of each other into a bloodbath, but Baekhyun and Kyungsoo have always understood and respected each other in the strangest of ways, because neither of them are really what their respective species expects them to be.

“Come in,” Kyungsoo says curtly, pressing at the morph-shirt until it fits to accommodate his limbs, and the bay door slides open, Baekhyun standing there as his tails flick behind him impatiently, biting at his bottom lip with his front incisors.

“We’ll be at Kotehedron within a period or two,” he says, fidgeting slightly, tense. Kyungsoo knows Baekhyun’s love of money and hatred of live-trade makes all this _finicky_ , but it’s not like they’d willingly agreed to this.

Plus, there’s the fact of backing out probably not being an option, but Baekhyun doesn’t need to know about that.

“I suck at landing, so,” Baekhyun’s tail twitches, and Kyungsoo smiles to himself, wrapping a sheer grey scarf around his neck.

“I’ll be out soon,” he says, and the door slides shut behind Baekhyun, footsteps echoing off the metal floors. Kyungsoo fiddles with his clothes for a few seconds more and vows to change into fresh ones as soon as Jongdae is awake, then he’s thinking about Jongdae and his head hurts and he’s back at square one.

Kotehedron is a dump of a planet but that’s kind of the standards you have to go for when you’re an intragalactic criminal, even if the Moonlight is known by name in very few quadrants. As Baekhyun easily sweet-talks the gatekeepers into letting their ‘humble little merchant ship’ through the planet’s forcefield, one of the bay doors behind the cockpits whooshes open, causing Kyungsoo to jump because it’s only ever been the two of them before _remembering_. Jongdae is rubbing at his eyes with sleepiness and seems to take everything in with varying layers of shock, but has at least has enough common sense to stay quiet before the holo-comm panel clicks shut and Baekhyun lazily gives Kyungsoo a wave to go-ahead, turning to Jongdae with a predatory smile.

“Hello sleepy head,” he says, and Jongdae swallows. “We were just about to stop for some supplies. Maybe even go grab a meal?”

Kyungsoo licks his lips, feeling the distinct part his flesh melds with the cybernetic implants across the right half of his face.

“If you’re paying,” he says flatly, meant as a joke with far too much truth because Kyungsoo is broke with a capital ‘B’. Baekhyun shrugs.

“Why not?” He shrugs nonchalantly, but Jongdae is still oddly pensive, so Baekhyun frowns. “You okay?”

“The alien abduction thing...” Jongdae gives as an explanation, waving his hands as he settles into the chair near the engineering panels, tentatively, but more firmly when neither Kyungsoo nor Baekhyun protest. It’s funny, actually, because The Moonlight _is_ a ship built for three people --a pilot’s chair, a communications station, and the engineering panel-- but they so rarely truly man the ship to its full potential, three people have never been needed, but Kyungsoo’s glad they at least have the space, if only just. Jongdae swallows so thickly it’s audible in the silence. “... Kinda takes some getting used to.”

“... Fair enough,” Baekhyun agrees, and laughs nervously, as Jongdae looks around the cockpit with subdued awe, still holding his head with his hand. Kyungsoo has to focus on steering the ship into a docking station, though, so he forces himself to look away. “Feeling any better?”

Baekhyun’s concern is only going to make things worth and they both know it, but there’s something about Jongdae’s sheer aura of _lost_ that makes Kyungsoo want to take care of him. He’s always had a bad thing for picking up strays --Baekhyun as his witness _and_ proof.

“Marginally,” Jongdae says, and it’s funny how the chip can translate the words in his head into the common tongue, but he still has a slight accent, like his mouth hasn’t learnt how to shape the sounds properly. It’s pretty in an oddly exotic way, but then again, so is the rest of Jongdae.

Not that Kyungsoo would know. Or should think about it.

Damn it.

“You slept for two whole cycles,” Kyungsoo points out. “Your body must be tired.”

Jongdae laughs lightly. “I have no fucking clue how long that is,” he says, and Kyungsoo’s ears flick because, _oh_ , of course Jongdae wouldn’t. They won’t use the same reference of time, but they have no comparison to utilise, either. Tricky. “But I’m gonna go with too long.”

“I mean it depends on your species, really,” Baekhyun comments idly, absentmindedly tossing one of the trinkets he keeps around the communications desk from hand-to-hand. “Most species need a few periods, but some can go for cycles without it, and others sleep for _rotations_ in colder seasons and stuff _\--_ ”

“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo sighs, cutting in. “The words might translate, but the meaning won’t.”

Baekhyun grins sheepishly. “Right. Sorry Jongdae. A... A pretty long time, yeah.”

Jongdae laughs breathily, and Kyungsoo swallows thickly, shifting. He cuts off as soon as he sees the crust of Kotehedron, though, jaw dropping and eyes going so wide it’s almost comical. Slowly, Kyungsoo leads them to a docking station, and it looks like Jongdae’s head might explode.

“I’ve never--” he says, and then, “--Holy fuck.”

“This… might be a lot for you,” Kyungsoo says, as he switches the engines off and stands. He’ll have to pay for parking and fuel, _ugh_. “Maybe you should stay on the ship?”

Decisively, Jongdae shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I mean I-- going to an alien planet feels like a once in a lifetime opportunity?” He swallows, and the oversized bulge in his neck bobs. “I kind of… want to see…”

“Besides Soo,” Baekhyun helpfully cuts in, grinning in all his sharp-toothed glory. “We owe the guy some breakfast.”

“ _You_ do,” Kyungsoo is careful to reiterate because uh _hello_ , money problems, but Baekhyun’s grin only inches just that little bit wider.

“Maybe all the information will be easier to digest over food, yeah?” Kyungsoo only hates it because he knows Baekhyun is just trying to soothe over the atmosphere, as well as distract himself from it. Jongdae is lost, and hurt, and Kyungsoo feels bad about that, but there’s also the fact that he hasn’t made up his mind about whether they can actually go through with this job or not, and there’s no doubt Baekhyun is still on the disagreeing side.

Kyungsoo has always been selfish --being an intragalactic thief demonstrates that well enough-- but to _sell_ someone for his own happiness, try to live his life while knowing that it came at the cost of… well, _whatever_ their buyer wants with Jongdae… that, he’s not so sure, makes the five million worth it. 

At the marketplace, Jongdae looks so overwhelmed it’s almost a little comical, jaw-dropping and eyes-wide as he gazes left and right, amazed at the lesser gravity on Kotehedron as he’s light on his feet. Baekhyun gently reaches over to push his mouth shut so that he doesn’t catch insects in it, but Jongdae still looks so shocked and out-of-place it’s going to bring more attention to them than what Kyungsoo’s cyborg-ness, Baekhyun’s Kuhonian-ness, and Jongdae’s… whatever-he-is-ness, already does.

Desperate to get the stares off of him, Kyungsoo quickly leads them to the back table in a small cafe, which, again, has Jongdae looking at everything in wonder. The hover-tables and chairs, the decorations around the place. Everything seems to amaze Jongdae to some capacity, and it makes Kyungsoo wonder just where it is Jongdae came from, and also why the _hell_ he’s so endearing.

Baekhyun easily passes Jongdae a menu, who only replies with, “Um.”

Because _oh_ , right. The UTC can can translate auditory cues both in and out, but it doesn’t affect visuals, so Jongdae can’t read. So much for such a pricey piece of stolen illegal technology --hopefully Lu Han never has to find out about them using the excess stock from one of their last jobs on Jongdae; they’d meant to sell it as soon as possible, but it kind of got put on the back burner of their to-do list.

“Ah, sorry,” Baekhyun replies sheepishly, taking the menu back as Jongdae offers him a forgiving smile.

“It’s okay,” he says gently. “I um, don’t think I know anything about the food here anyway. You guys can… order for me?”

“Sweet or savoury?” Baekhyun asks, to which Jongdae replies savoury, and Baekhyun adds, “Ah, makes sense, I’m sweet enough as is.”

Jongdae looks at him, and then keeps looking at him.

“Right… anyway…” he prompts, as Baekhyun makes a noise in offense and swats at his shoulder, causing Jongdae to cackle a bubbly, sharp-edged thing that echoes throughout the restaurant. It’s a very, very nice sound, and it makes Kyungsoo want to throw up. Jongdae is clearly as sentient and intelligent as the rest of them, and that doesn’t feel good at all.

As their food comes, Baekhyun fills out the silence like he always knows how to do, asking Jongdae mindless questions about his life on this ‘Earth’. It certainly doesn’t sound like any planet or culture Kyungsoo has heard of, but more than that, it seems Jongdae _himself_ doesn’t remember much about it. Eventually, he admits that his memory is still kind of frozen, in a way, his brain still thawing out all the details, and Baekhyun offers him a reassuring squeeze on his shoulder and a small smile, which Jongdae accepts.

Even when he eats he seems intensely curious about the food on his plate, poking at the different parts with a scrunched up brow and hesitantly placing each bite in his mouth. The face of surprise he makes at the deliciousness has Kyungsoo laughing before he can stop himself, and soon Jongdae becomes the centre of entertainment at the table, as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo exchange amused looks while Jongdae is too wrapped up in his meal to even notice. It’s surprising to see someone who finds so much wonder in the world around him, but oddly endearing too.

By the time they’re done, Jongdae looks a lot better about the whole probably-being-abducted thing if it means the food is this good, and he stretches in satisfaction, yawning as his eyelids droop.

“You _just_ woke up,” Baekhyun points out, and whether he’s talking about the pod thing or the two-cycle nap, Kyungsoo doesn’t know, but finds it oddly funny all the same.

“I can’t help that I’m tired,” Jongdae whines, high-pitched and pouting.

Gently, Kyungsoo suggests, “We still have some errands to run, maybe you should wait on the ship?” He doesn’t want to take Jongdae with him to Soojung either way for… obvious reasons. Although Baekhyun and Kyungsoo evidently aren’t the type to treat Jongdae like a prisoner, it’s not like they can simply treat him like a _friend_ , either --even if they are dangerously toeing that line. They don’t know what he is, or how he got here, or where he comes from, they don’t even know why their buyer wants him. They can’t _trust_ him, first and foremost, and they also can’t risk scaring him off, either. Although it seems like Jongdae is too naive to be anything but _lost_ , Kyungsoo knows that looks can easily be deceiving, and wants to treat the whole situation as delicately as possible, until he finds out more about what the hell is going on.

Jongdae looks around the street with a nervous laugh, all the different species of people he obviously doesn’t recognise causing him to shirk into his shoulders a little bit. It must be jarring, being thrust into a whole new world so suddenly, but it’s the fact that Jongdae handles it all so well that has Kyungsoo’s hearts wincing.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Jongdae meekly agrees, as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo lead him back to the ship, easily offering up their rooms. Jongdae picks Kyungsoo’s, but only because it’s a little bit bigger.

“We should be pack in a period or two,” Baekhyun says, as Jongdae gives him a confused look; Baekhyun grunts in frustration. “Okay, hear this?” He taps out two long beats on his upper leg. “Those are micro-periods, and there are twelve of them in a nano-period, and twelve of _those_ in a period. Twelve periods in a cycle, six cycles in a loop, four loops in a rotation, twenty-four rotations in a band--”

“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo cuts in, watching as Jongdae’s eyes get wider and wider. “Please.”

“Sorry,” Baekhyun apologises sheepishly, tails drooping. “We’ll uh, work up to references of time, yeah?”

“Um. Sure?” Jongdae offers, which Kyungsoo smiles at softly. “Good luck… with your errands? I’m gonna nap for uh, another thirty cycles.”

Baekhyun grins because Jongdae is _trying_. It is, like the rest of him, horribly endearing.

And that’s not a good thing.

They leave the Moonlight behind them and head to Soojung’s stockhouse at the edge of the main city, as Baekhyun sidles up next to Kyungsoo and says, “What the hell are we going to do with him?”

“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo answers, and it’s no better than the other hundred excuses he’s given every single time Baekhyun asks this, but it is the _truth_. Baekhyun frowns disappointedly; he obviously isn’t pro the whole live-trade thing, for evident reasons, but he has a bad habit of listening to what Kyungsoo tells him to do --when it comes to serious things, anyway. “I think we should take him to Chanyeol, work out what he is and how he got here first,” Kyungsoo says, which Baekhyun relaxes at. “I’m not-- I’m not making any final decisions until we know what we’re dealing with.”

It’s a flimsy response, but Baekhyun relaxes slightly, regardless, obviously happier with that than any of the other replies Kyungsoo has given him. There’s only one person in the entire galaxy Kyungsoo can trust to actually analyse Jongdae without turning him in as a rare species or whatever; but that doesn’t mean he’s any less reluctant about the fact that it’s _Chanyeol_.

“At least that’s a plan,” Baekhyun responds, sticking up his nose a little, and Kyungsoo resists the urge to pinch his ear for being such a _brat_. Unfortunately, the all-encompassing _fondness_ he holds for Baekhyun prevents him from acting upon it, but that’s not always the case. “But what the hell are we going to do with him if you quit the job, Soo?”

That, well. That was another problem entirely.

 

Soojung’s stockhouse, Baekhyun thinks, resembles a giant dick sticking up out of the ground.

He doubts that that was the creator’s intention, of course, but sometimes architectural mishaps just _happen_ , especially when you build a narrow tower that flares out at the top. Like really, what did they expect? Of course, _Baekhyun’s_ dicks don’t particularly look like that, but genitalia across species can be startlingly similar in penetrative design --Baekhyun would know best of all. In a way, it kind of looks like Jongdae’s had that first time he’d woken up, if not less floppy and weird, but is Jongdae’s even a dick? It _was_ floppy and weird, after all, Baekhyun isn’t sure how that penetrates mucus plugs all that well but at least the rest of him was pretty --but why else would it be long and external if it wasn’t a dick? Not to mention the way Jongdae had covered it up ensure that it was a _private_ thing, as genitalia tended to be.

Shrugging the phallic thoughts off, Baekhyun sticks close behind Kyungsoo, frowning at his backside momentarily. He doesn’t like how much Kyungsoo is hesitating about all of this, and although he knows it’s because Kyungsoo can be terribly indecisive when there are too many factors to consider, it doesn’t make Baekhyun any less unhappy about the situation, or the fact that he’ll go along with it regardless. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo don’t fight --they bicker, and argue, and poke and prod at each other, but they don’t _fight--_  mostly because Baekhyun owes Kyungsoo his life, and kind of follows him to the ends of the galaxy unquestionably to pay it back.

Soojung’s stockhouse is a marketplace flooded with normal sellers and black market sellers both, for travelers to trade and bargain and acquire whatever they want. It’s high cost to get a spot in her tower, but high reward, too. Kotehedron doesn’t really _have_ any natural resources, which means it relies on all the trade routes and its midway point status in the galaxy to keep it up and running. That’s why Soojung can get away with housing a semi-illegal stockhouse in the outskirts of the city.

And really, Baekhyun has no trouble following Kyungsoo up and down the levels to get what they want. More engine cleaner (legal), more blaster cartridges (illegal), food (arguably legal, depending on the customs rules) and water, some replacement parts for Kyungsoo’s squeaky joints (legal if licensed so, in this case, again, _illegal_ ) and a new jacket, purely because it catches Kyungsoo’s eyes (technically legal, but it’s kind of ugly so Baekhyun thinks it _should_ be illegal). They manage to get just about everything they need, when Soojung herself steps out of the elevator.

Never let it be said that Baekhyun _does_ bad break-ups.

Never let it be said that Baekhyun _does_ break-ups full _stop_.

“Well well well,” Soojung says, and walks forward with her wings twitching behind her back, smile sly. “Back for round six? Or is it round seven?”

Kyungsoo gives Baekhyun a sideways glance who only laughs sheepishly in return, ears flattening instinctively to appear less threatening. Soojung doesn’t get pissed off easily, and Baekhyun has always liked how cool-headed she is, but that doesn’t mean he’s not on thin ice either way. And Soojung is _literally_ the ice queen since her body temperature is below freezing, so.

“Intermission,” Baekhyun supplies, and Soojung gives him a flat look, indifferent. Baekhyun’s first few rotations of freedom with Kyungsoo had been spent doing… well, a lot of the things he was taught not to do back on Kuhonia. Soojung had been one of them. Multiple times. Consensually, of course.

Baekhyun doesn’t regret it, although he’s considerably calmed down --no thanks to Kyungsoo’s unspoken relief. His habit of sleeping with any good-looking thing in sight caused Kyungsoo to lose a few important connections because _some_ people don’t understand Baekhyun’s no-strings-attached rule. It comes in the manual, it’s not _his_ fault other people catch feelings.

Not that he doesn’t catch feelings, because he does. Even if he's biologically not supposed to outside of his own species.

Kyungsoo as his proof but _ah_ , no, bad thoughts. Baekhyun has blacklisted this topic from his internal monologue forever.

“What brings you two back to Kotehedron?” Soojung asks. “A job?”

“Something like that,” Kyungsoo answers, and Soojung gives him a hum of acknowledgement. Even if Baekhyun is the one she’d slept with, he can never shake the feeling that, for some reason, she likes Kyungsoo a lot more. Maybe _because_ Baekhyun is the one she slept with. Huh.

“Well, if you’re ever looking for more work, you know where to find me,” she mentions casually. Trust is hard to find between an employer and employees both, but Soojung and the Moonlight have something akin to it, if only just.

“We’re actually in the middle of something right now, but thanks,” Baekhyun says, smiling lopsidedly as he holds the bags in his arms tighter against his chest. Soojung just laughs.

“Not many people say no to me, you realise,” she says, with a smirk that sends shards of ice digging into Baekhyun’s back. Soojung taps two of her feet impatiently, the third remaining still. “So you’re lucky you’re cute.” She gives them both a cruel smile, bidding Kyungsoo a calm farewell, and smiling as she continues about her business. Kyungsoo immediately gives Baekhyun a flat look as soon as she’s gone.

“Your dicks are going to get us killed some day,” he says, wryly. Baekhyun is unfortunately inclined to agree.

 

(“ _Jongdae_ ,” Jongdeok chastises, and Jongdae spins around to face him, grinning. “We shouldn’t be out here, it’s dangerous.”

“It’s a _forest,_  hyung,” Jongdae snorts, running his fingers along one of the trunks of the Korean pine trees. “You know demons aren’t real, right?”

“Ugh,” Jongdeok complains. “I wouldn’t have agreed to take you for a walk if I’d known you’d be like this.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Jongdae whines, and throws a half-rotten pinecone at his brother, who cackles and easily dodges it. “I’m not a dog…” he mumbles, readjusting the straps across his shoulders and frowning.

“Sure you’re not, Jongryong,” Jongdeok teases, and Jongdae snaps his teeth at him threateningly and to maybe prove a point. His brother’s eyes curve when he smiles. “Come on, we should get back soon. Mom and Dad will be worried.”

“Just a little longer?” Jongdae pleads, clasping his hands together and doing the best puppy-dog eyes expression. “Please please please _pleeeassseeee?_ ”

“Ugh, fine,” Jongdeok relents, and Jongdae quietly fist pumps as they continue up the mountain path. “But we have to be back before sunset or Mom is gonna lose it, okay?”

“Okay~” Jongdae cheerily replies, and hums to himself happily, the song they’d been learning in music class, lately. Jongdae loves singing more than anything else, but Jongdeok always warns him to be careful because his voice might start sucking once it breaks, but Jongdae always ignores him. Jongdeok’s only fifteen, he’s not _that_ superior in knowledge or whatever.

They continue up the path, Jongdae happy to explore, and when he hears the rushing of water, his eyes glisten, picking up the pace.

“Jongdae-ya, wait--” Jongdeok calls, but Jongdae giggles and ignores him, stopping when he reaches the bend and finds a waterfall, eyes widening. “--Woah.”

Jongdeok stops a few steps behind him, and Jongdae grins down at him, running towards the rushing water. Nature like this is so hard to come by when you live in a place like Siheung, so densely populated and surrounded by concrete and metal, but Jongdae _loves_ the freedom of outdoors so much he can’t think of anything better.

“It’s beautiful,” Jongdae says, to the rushing stream of crystal-water that breaks down to the stream that curves around the mountain, causing fragments of colour to sparkle in the air, so loud it drowns out the sound of every thought in Jongdae’s head. Jongdae _loves_ it.

Grinning, it doesn’t take much thought for him to unclip his backpack, shucking off his t-shirt and shorts, snapping Jongdeok out of his reverie with a, “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Going for a swim,” Jongdae says, like it’s obvious. “Duh.”

“Jongdae it’ll be _freezing,_ ” Jongdeok warns. “And you shouldn’t touch untreated water, remember? The virus--”

“--Hasn’t even reached Korea yet,” Jongdae snorts. “You worry too much, hyung.”

“Someone has to take care of you, brat,” Jongdeok mutters, but Jongdae is too busy diving into the stream to care about that, icey water smothering his skin and causing goosebumps to raise as he rises for air, giggling delightedly.

“Hyung, it’s _so_ cold!” He says, but cheerily, which causes Jongdeok to frown in confusion, and Jongdae pushes himself back onto shore, shaking off spare droplets. He hasn’t been able to shower for nearly a whole week no thanks to his parents wanting him to _get in touch with nature_ or something, eugh. At least his skin feels a little better now. “You should come in too.”

“No way,” Jongdeok says firmly, but Jongdae rolls his eyes, wrapping his hands around his brother’s wrist and tugging him further up the stream, nearer to the waterfall.

“Such a party pooper, hyung,” Jongdae teases, but falters when he sees something in the water, trickling through. It looks like a black thread, kind of, like someone has left ink to dribble down the thing, and Jongdae steps closer to it, faltering, watching as the entire waterfall darkens the closer he gets, nose nearly touching the stream itself as thick, black, gooey droplets flick onto his skin and underwear.

“Hyung,” Jongdae says softly, scared and confused all at once. “What’s--”

“Sleep, Jongdae,” Jongdeok says, but his face is so much older, his clothes are different, his voice is deeper too, what the hell is happening-- “Sleep for eternity.”

Jongdeok pushes Jongdae forward, and he stumbles at the sudden force, tripping into the waterfall and screaming, but his lungs are immediately filled with the black liquid, like tar, and it’s _solidifying_ , freezing his limbs into place and growing colder and colder until Jongdae can’t even move _and--)_

 

Jongdae wakes up with a gasp, heart pounding in his chest and ears, hyperventilating. He doesn’t even remember what his dream --or, well, nightmare-- had been about, remembers only the ghost sensation of fear that comes with it. The harder he tries to remember, the more he seems to forget, and bit by bit the details slip away from him, until Jongdae is left only with the feeling of being too cold and having a hole in his heart.

Standing from Kyungsoo’s chair --the pilot’s seat, he supposes, which he’d fallen asleep in-- Jongdae stumbles into Baekhyun’s bedroom and pushes at the same wall panel from before, finding something that resembles a jacket and tugging it over himself. He falters trying to find that button thing to make it fit better, but ultimately fails, deflating and allowing the too-broad jacket to hang off his shoulders instead, grabbing another metal cup of water and sitting in Kyungsoo’s spot.

It’s funny that he’s slept for so much --about a day, Jongdae gathered, considering the time reference Baekhyun had explained briefly, which would make a cycle about twelve hours-- but still feels _so_ tired, not even entirely sure if being on this ship, with aliens, is a dream or not. Can you dream within a dream? Or is that something that only exists in Leonardo DiCaprio movies?

Jongdae frowns, and sips more water, sighing in contentment as it moisturizes his dry throat. It’s like his body keeps forgetting all the necessary body functions until it’s too late, but thankfully he’d managed to work out that that hole in Baekhyun’s bathroom was a toilet --again, only sucking with air-- otherwise Jongdae would be having some problems right now.

He tugs the oversized black jacket around himself further, and curls his fingers around the cup as he glances out the front window. It hadn’t taken him long to realise that the ship must have tinted windows from the outside, because he’d been staring at the aliens that passed by so unabashedly it was hard to imagine that they _couldn’t_ notice him. Every single alien --person?-- that walked past, had seemed to be of a different species, moving along the thin, hovering bridges between ships like they were nothing, but Jongdae had still tried to categorise them as best he could, matching features with ones he’s seen before and then hoping that it wasn’t just like, the same alien. It was really fucking _hard_ , he’d decided, because it was fascinating and horrifying to see so many odd lifeforms all at once, but he’d also been so tired it had made his head hurt and well, he’d fallen asleep.

But if there’s one thing Jongdae _has_ decided, it’s that he hasn’t seen a single alien that looks even slightly like Baekhyun or Kyungsoo. Maybe their species is as rare as Jongdae’s is, out here.

Which is a depressing thought, Jongdae thinks, reducing the human race to a word such as _species_. It’s accurate, of course, he knows --hadn’t taken high school biology for nothing-- but it’s still a startling thing. Jongdae had spent so much of his life thinking that yeah, aliens might be out there, but he would never find out in his time, and now he’s here in the middle of _space_ , and he’ll probably never see another human ever again.

Jongdae takes a very, very long sip.

The ship beeps, and it startles Jongdae, water dripping down his chin and across Baekhyun’s jacket as he stands up out of Kyungsoo’s chair, but, naturally, it’s just Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, bickering about something Jongdae can’t make sense of with bunch of crates on a hovering dolley that they easily push into the ship.

“Hello,” Kyungsoo greets, and does a strange hand gesture again, which Jongdae assumes is in greeting, and Baekhyun rolls his eyes at it. “I hope you didn’t get too bored.”

Jongdae laughs, high and nervous. “I’ve never seen aliens before in my life,” he jabs his thumb to the window behind him. “People-watching kept me entertained for hours--” wait, shit. “--I mean uh. Periods.”

Baekhyun grins at that with pointed teeth, even as he loads some of the crates into a strange chute towards the entrance of the ship.

“Good,” Kyungsoo says earnestly, and his shoulders soften. “I’m glad you weren’t too overwhelmed alone.”

Well, Jongdae wouldn’t say _that_ , but he doesn’t want to worry Kyungsoo since he’s been so… weirdly nice, smiling at him instead. Kyungsoo smiles back, half-metal face and all, and it occurs again to Jongdae how odd it is that even though they’re probably light years apart in terms of where they come from, emotional cues are still so similar.

“I actually feel a lot better after resting,” Jongdae admits, as Kyungsoo and Baekhyun take turns backing the crates away into the various wall-panels lining the hallway. “And I need to ask… what do you plan on doing with me?” They both freeze in unison, and Jongdae flusters at the attention when two heads turn to look at him. “I mean I-- you can’t just keep me here forever, right? I can’t expect you to take care of me and I’m sure there’s an alien economy and stuff so I’m probably deadweight and--”

“Jongdae,” Kyungsoo says calmly, and Jongdae’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m sorry, we should have told you earlier, but we were going to take you to a friend of ours.” Baekhyun’s face twists, and he resumes his packing of the supplies, looking away. “He’ll be able to tell you where you’re from, and then we can work out how to get you home.”

“Oh,” Jongdae says lamely. “I… thank you. Wow I--” he runs a hand through his hair, sticky with hours of sleep and grease. “--I guess I was lucky to end up with aliens as nice as you guys, huh?”

Kyungsoo and Baekhyun exchange a look Jongdae can’t decipher, and then Baekhyun laughs almost nervously, high-pitched with a little, “Yep.” Jongdae frowns at that.

“You don’t need to worry about paying us back,” Kyungsoo says, and glares at Baekhyun before smiling at Jongdae. It’s an oddly nice smile, kind of heart shaped, Jongdae thinks, even if Kyungsoo’s teeth are flat, wide, and squarish and half off his face is devoured by steel-grey metal and machinery. “Consider it pro bono work.”

“Great,” Jongdae snorts. “I’m a charity case.” Baekhyun’s grin will probably never cease to look vicious or predatory.

“It’s a good thing,” he assures, patting Kyungsoo’s shoulder which comes out with a quiet metal _thunk_. “‘Cuz Soo here has a weak spot for strays. You might be out in zero g freezing your ass off if it were any other case.”

Jongdae grows pale at that, and Kyungsoo rolls his living-eye, pushing Baekhyun’s hand off his shoulder and shaking his head.

“Stop freaking him out,” he chastises, but Baekhyun only pouts childishly before shrugging, moving back to the last few crates. Kyungsoo lets out a fond sigh of exasperation. “Anyway,” he starts, turning back to Jongdae. “We won’t be able to make it to the planet our friend lives on for another few loops or so--” he stops suddenly. “--That’s… six cycles, by the way-- so we’ll just be flying until then.”

“Oh,” Jongdae manages, lamely. “Okay then.” It’s not like he’s going to argue otherwise, after all. Kyungsoo evidently knows best.

Baekhyun dusts his hands behind Kyungsoo, the last few supplies having been moved away, and then he says, “Is that my jacket?”

“Oh I’m-- sorry I was cold--” Jongdae quickly rambles, but Baekhyun waves his hands, moving towards his seat in the cockpit, closing his eyes and leaning back against the headrest. He cracks an eye open, and grins at Jongdae’s flush. Jongdae sighs.

“Cute.” Baekhyun comments, and yelps when something soars across the cockpit and hits him in the back of the head.

“I don’t keep you around to make eyes at alien abductees,” Kyungsoo scolds, as Baekhyun picks up the tiny round ball Kyungsoo had thrown and pops it into his mouth, grumbling indignantly beneath his breath. “Get us to Aelia, idiot.”

“Yessir,” Baekhyun says sardonically, and saunters to the pilot’s seat, the ship starting up to life as Baekhyun fiddles with the switches on the main control panel.

“Sorry about Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says, offering out the bag of small orb food things. “He’ll flirt with anything bipedal, don’t take it personally. Grackle?”

“Oh, um, thanks,” Jongdae says, and hesitantly pops one into his mouth. It’s sweet and sour all at once and deliciously _not_ dehydrated, oozing with juice into his mouth. He takes another eagerly, and Kyungsoo’s lips twitch. “And it’s um. It’s fine.”

“Hey,” Baekhyun says from behind them. “I don’t discriminate based on legs.”

“Right,” Kyungsoo replies drily. “I think Soojung is proof enough of that as is.”

The ship backs out of the port, and Jongdae loses his balance, smiling sheepishly as Kyungsoo’s metal hand wraps around his forearm to steady him.

“Three legs is just triple the fun Kyungsoo~” Baekhyun snorts. “Not that you would know. Besides, she’s hot. What was I meant to do? Friendzone her?”

“God, is that all that matters to you?” Kyungsoo groans. “Looks and the amount of legs?”

“When it comes to sex?” Baekhyun laughs. “Surprisingly, yeah. Not that _you_ would get it, but when emotions aren’t involved looks are kind of the point. Legs? Not so much.” Jongdae opens his mouth to argues that no, you should definitely have an emotional bond or else you could be sleeping with someone you hate, but then he realises they’re talking about _alien sex_ and he feels oddly out of place, shutting his mouth just as quickly.

(In the back of his brain, Jongdae idly wonders how that works, anyway, when Baekhyun has so many _tails_ and--)

Jongdae clears his throat. “I’m um, going to go to the bathroom,” he announces awkwardly, feeling all the water from before really hitting him as Baekhyun just laughs.

“You’ll be living here with us for a while,” he says. “You don’t need to tell us your every move.”

Jongdae doesn’t have a reply to that considering when he’d first woken up they’d escorted him everywhere, just flushes red and goes towards Baekhyun’s bedroom, unsure if Kyungsoo’s bathroom will have the same facility. He sighs in relief once his bladder is no longer threatening to explode, but wishes the taps used water instead of disinfecting air for everything so he could splash his face a little, try to wake up some more. He still feels kind of groggy even if his head is clearer, and Jongdae stares at his reflection in the sink mirror with a little more fervor. He’s so… _dull,_ compared to the amount of aliens he’s seen today, and for his own standards, he’s pale too, like he hasn’t seen the sun in a hundred years. It makes his eyes stand out that much darker, and the shadows beneath them, too. How much sleep could it possibly take for Jongdae until he starts to feel awake again?

A sudden pang of discomfort in his torso, and Jongdae doubles over the sink, groaning, holding a hand against his chest where it feels like someone is twisting the knife. He coughs with the sudden urge of it into his hands, wet and _painful_ as daggers shred through his throat, and when Jongdae finally recovers after _minutes_ of coughing, he pulls his hands back, and gasps.

Because they’re covered in something so thick and sticky and black, it looks just like tar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just as a point of reference because it can be kind of tricky to keep track of, here's a rough reference for the New Time System™ that will make it easier to deal with:  
> micro-period = second  
> nano-period = minute  
> period = hour  
> cycle = 12 hours  
> loop = half a week  
> rotation = one month  
> band = one year  
> they're not _actually_ that long, but it's a close enough comparison. there's no reason for an entire galaxy to base their time system on the rotations around the sun of _one_ planet y'know. so. i think it should be easier to understand as the fic goes on but i'll leave this here just in case anyway, like how some books have a glossary of terms at the back; just in case.


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a problem with being stuck on a spaceship for five cycles straight, and it’s this:

“I’m bored,” Baekhyun declares loudly, tails swinging agitatedly in the air.

“Then make yourself useful,” Kyungsoo answers --predictably so, in hindsight-- flipping through holo-screens spread out in front of him. He’s been on edge ever since they started this job and has been getting dangerously close to falling off with each light year that they get closer to Aelia. Aelia is not Kyungsoo’s home planet --since that would be Drovarys-- but it is _home_ , and everyone gets filled with a sort of antsy anticipation when it comes to a long-time-coming return back. Of course, for Baekhyun, most of that anticipation is mostly fear but, semantics.

“You know I can’t do that,” Baekhyun whines, because there’s only so much inventory to take and so many maintenance check-ups he can perform on the ship before everything is as it needs to be and Baekhyun is too stingy to pay for a Spaceflix subscription per rotation. Service is shitty in hyper space either way, and Kyungsoo doesn’t have a lot of in-flight entertainment installed, so to speak. “I’m _tired_ , Soo, I want to rest, not be productive.”

There’s a single eye roll before Kyungsoo is gracing Baekhyun with a flat look, and saying, “Then go to your room, jump out the airlock, I don’t care. Just stop bothering me.”

It’s patronising, which doesn’t feel great, but Baekhyun’s not in the mood to be snapped at either way, pulling a face and getting up, walking back to his room. The door to Kyungsoo’s quarters slide open just as Baekhyun is walking past, revealing a yawning Jongdae, and, in realisation, Baekhyun smiles.

“Say, Jongdae,” Baekhyun tries, stepping forward in a way that has Jongdae stepping back. Interesting. “Do you know how to play nine-three-one?”

Jongdae blinks at him sleepily, having been asleep for the last cycle or so, and he does, admittedly, look oddly pale, eyes all puffy. Gross, humans are _so_ weird.

“Do you think I know how to play an alien game?” Jongdae counters, and aw, cute, he’s grumpy when he’s sleepy. Baekhyun smiles.

“Well, you never know,” he shrugs, then pauses. “Also you realise _you’re_ the alien here, right?”

“How could I ever forget,” Jongdae mutters, coughing wetly into the palm of his hand before wiping it on the side of his thigh, causing Baekhyun to frown.

“Hey,” he says, wrapping a hand around Jongdae’s wrist, and watching as he freezes where he stands. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean for you to feel more out of place than you already do.”

Jongdae shakes his head, smiling weakly. “No, you’re fine. I’m just irritable when I’m tired,” Baekhyun still isn’t convinced, so he pouts. “How about you teach me your space game?” Jongdae offers, giving a lopsided grin. Baekhyun obliges.

He lets Jongdae get some food and water and greet Kyungsoo before they move to Baekhyun’s room and he gestures for Jongdae to sit on the other end of the bed, smoothing down the sheets and pulling out the pieces from the game station beneath his bed.

“The aim of the game is to collect these three pieces,” Baekhyun explains, holding up the tower, the ocean, and the sky pieces. “Off the enemy, but you have to kind of work your way towards them, because there are a bunch of other pieces to capture first.”

“Like, chess times three,” Jongdae mumbles, and Baekhyun tilts his head. “Ah it’s-- an earth game.”

“Okay, sure,” Baekhyun shrugs, smiling a little before he can stop himself. “You also have three classes to assign to your nine pieces, and you can only assign three max of each class.” Baekhyun pulls out three star pieces to demonstrate. “Fire beats ice, ice beats water, water beats fire.” The pieces attack each other as Baekhyun knocks the opposite classes together one by one, and Jongdae’s eyes go wide at the way the small animatronic pieces interact. “You always want to have the upper hand, obviously, but keep in mind the pieces move across the board differently too.”

“And where’s the board,” Jongdae asks, peering in the game box, to which Baekhyun pulls out the flat piece and presses the _expand_ button, enjoying the way Jongdae’s jaw drops. He’s so blown away by even the most insignificant of things; it’s oddly endearing. He’s like a Kuhonian cub the way he asks questions and runs his hands over things as Baekhyun explains the three tiers of the gameboard and which pieces can move ‘interdimensionally’ (as it’s referred to in-game.) By the time they get to the actual _playing_ part, Jongdae is… well, pretty bad, but only because he has to stop and ask Baekhyun what each piece does every now and then. Once the game ends --which it does rather quickly-- Jongdae is frowning with his eyebrows all knitted together, and Baekhyun can’t help but laugh.

“Relax,” he tells Jongdae, patting him on the shoulder with a tail just to watch the way he resists squirming. “You can’t be good on your first try.”

“That’s what she said,” Jongdae mumbles, and Baekhyun fucking _snorts_ as he laughs, loud and unabashed.

“Come on,” he says, once his incessant giggling has significantly calmed down. “Let’s just try again.”

  
  


(It’s called _blackblood,_  and it sweeps the world off its feet. One tree dug up the wrong way, unleashing a sleeping virus onto the world, and suddenly the population is dying out piece by piece, contaminating the waterways, spreading internationally. The incubation period is impossible to pinpoint, the symptoms are _so_ varying, but all that’s said for sure is that if you are infected, you will die.

But Jongdae fights anyway, because that’s what he does _best_ , taking everything on his shoulders and pushing onwards --he doesn’t know what else he _can_ do. He’ll only have one chance to live his life, and this is it.

So he risks it, takes experimental medications, undergoes risky procedures and treatments, but it’s _positive_. He can finish his degree, he can get a job, Jongdae has until he’s twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six--

\--And then one day, he coughs up blackblood into his bathroom sink, and his body is deteriorating at a rate the doctor’s can’t prevent any further. Jongdeok is _furious_ , curses them, says their medicine is all so pointless if all it gives is false hope to be crushed. Jongdae tries to calm his anger, soothe him over, stop the fury from taking him over, but it _doesn’t_. Jongdeok throws himself into his labs for days, weeks, months, leaving Jongdae alone in hospital, his mother and father having no answers for his brother’s sudden disappearance.

All he ever gets from Jongdeok is a text that says _I’m going to save you._  Jongdae closes his eyes, leaning against the pillows of his hospital cot, and tries not to focus on the way the black substance in his lungs fills his throat and the entire room around him, slowly drowning him with each passing day.)

  
  


Jongdae wakes up startled with a wet, strangled gasp caught in his throat, and immediately grimaces, coughing the substance out of his lungs so he can breathe again, covering his cupped hands in blood as he hurries into the bathroom and washes it down the sink, wincing. The clotted blood isn’t contagious, he knows, because the virus is only infectious in its sleeper stage outside of finding a host, but that doesn’t make the thick, sticky black substance any less disgusting to deal with.

Mind hazy, Jongdae rubs at his eyes, and looks at his reflection. Pale, sickly, _dying_. The memories of Earth are hitting him like a freight train, but his body isn’t strong enough to handle it, collapsing against the bathroom wall and groaning with his head between his hands. He’s torn between sleeping and puking up more infected blood, but he has to fight this, he _has_ to. He’s been fighting it since he was thirteen, he can _keep fighting it,_  medicine be damned.

“What’s happening to me?” Jongdae asks his reflection, but there’s no answer, because information about the disease only comes in tidbits, slipping through his fingers like sand until he quickly forgets what it had even felt like to hold it to begin with.

 _I don’t know,_ Jongdae’s reflection seems to say back, but he does, doesn’t he? Or he did, once upon a time, _fuck_. His mind feels like a murky pool he can’t make sense of, memories passing in flashes of deja vu then disappearing as quickly as they had appeared. He knows it’s blackblood, he knows it’s killing him, he knows it’s… transmitted via… fluid… water, maybe… when the virus kills it hosts, spores can be released to further the spread, like a fungus but _not,_  because they’re not alive, but--

Jongdae gasps as the images swarm his head, newspaper clippings, TV reports, about how it’s unlike anything the human race has ever seen, unclassified into any domains of life, or even unclassified as _living_ to begin with. The population was dwindling out by thousands every single day, and although Jongdae had been lucky enough to be born into enough wealth and privilege to keep him alive far past the average expectancy, it would never be _enough._

And then, Jongdeok, Jongdae’s older brother, his _hyung,_  his world, the one who taught him how to cook and clean properly, encouraged Jongdae’s dreams and ambitions where their parents would not, indulged in his fantasies of exploring forests and gave him tips on picking up girls, told him it was okay to want to pick up boys too, he’s… he’s back on earth, and Jongdae is all the way out here, in the middle of nowhere, having no idea how he got here, or why he’s here, why _him_ of all people was abducted --if that’s even what happened-- trapped on a ship filled with aliens and alien cyborgs and seeing things his people haven’t even _dreamed_ of being used as easily as blinking.

Sighing, Jongdae takes a quick air-shower before stepping back into the room and redresses, grimacing at the feeling of dirty clothes upon clean skin. He should tell Baekhyun and Kyungsoo about the infection, he _knows_ he should, yet in the face of everything, something is holding him back. He doesn’t even know why he’s here, or what they want from him, or what’s going on in general. Who’s to say if they find out Jongdae is faulty goods, they won’t just dump him in the middle of the vacuum of space? They said they’d found him by accident, and Jongdae believes him, but naivete has always been the worst of his qualities, as his brother was fond of reminding him.

Jongdae hesitates by the door, but tentatively steps out, the ship already put into hyper-space, as Baekhyun had explained to him once Jongdae had asked. Baekhyun is good at answering questions, Jongdae has found, and it doesn’t suit his predatory demeanour or impish grin, but he’s contradictory like that, patient as he indulges Jongdae’s curiosity. After six rounds of nine-five-three, Jongdae had _finally_ gotten good enough to actually be a challenge to Baekhyun, but instead of being childish about it, he’d just seemed proud.

It was weird, Jongdae thinks, how well they got along, when the light years between their planets would make you think otherwise, but they had similar senses of humour, similar interests. Baekhyun’s love of talking proved a good match or Jongdae’s love of learning, but more than that, Jongdae recognised that Baekhyun wasn’t simply being friendly because he was _bored_ , but because he’d _wanted_ to. Talking to Baekhyun, playing games with him, it all helped to distract from the pain in Jongdae’s head and lungs, and maybe, in a way, Baekhyun knew that.

Quietly padding towards the cockpit, it’s Kyungsoo’s shift now, as he stares out the front-facing window with a frown on his face, deep in thought. Whereas Baekhyun is easy-going and extroverted, Jongdae has found Kyungsoo to be far quieter and reserved, but also hesitant, in a way, like Jongdae is some kind of stray animal. It makes him nervous, but it makes him feel weirdly safe, too. It’s probably the worst type of feeling to have towards being trapped on a spaceship with two aliens in the middle of nowhere having no memory of how he’d gotten there, but it’s something Kyungsoo and Baekhyun are weirdly good at; making Jongdae feel welcome, feel _safe_. It does, if nothing else, make him feel more nervous, as juxtaposing as it may seem, because Jongdae doesn’t understand _why_.

As soon as he steps into the cockpit, however, Kyungsoo’s ears flicker and he swivels, turning around, startled.

“Sorry,” Jongdae says sheepishly, settling into the third seat. “I couldn’t sleep.” _For once._

The flesh-half of Kyungsoo’s face softens at that, and he says, “Bad dreams?”

“Something like that,” Jongdae answers quietly, and fidgets in the silence. Kyungsoo seems intent on staring out into hyper-space, though, and he doesn’t want to bother him. Taking the excuse to do so, Jongdae openly stares at Kyungsoo’s profile, and decides, in that moment, that aliens have a certain sort of beauty to them, don’t they?

“How are you feeling?” Kyungsoo asks, and Jongdae nearly jumps at the question, worried that he’d heard him coughing before, or seen the blood, as Kyungsoo just blinks at him dumbly with his still-living eye. “Spending time with Baekhyun all cycle must be exhausting.”

Jongdae relaxes, laughing quietly. “It wasn’t too bad,” he admits, then pauses. “I mean, don’t you two, like…” it occurs to Jongdae that he doesn’t _know_ what Baekhyun and Kyungsoo do, and amongst all the other holes of knowledge in his head, it just makes his brain hurt.

“We work and live together, yes,” Kyungsoo answers, staring out at the stars as they race by. He gives Jongdae a small smile, but it’s strange to look at, considering the whole… cyborg thing Kyungsoo has going on. Jongdae would ask what that’s all about, but at this point, it seems rude to. “It was a joke.”

“Oh,” Jongdae says, lamely. “Ha… ha?” Kyungsoo’s ears droop in what Jongdae assumes to be dejection, and his first thought is _cute_ , followed by _wait,_ only to end with a _I should probably be nice to him_. “I guess humour is hard to translate across species.”

Kyungsoo laughs, low but quiet. “Nice save.”

“Thank you.” Jongdae preens. This time, as the silence rolls around, it’s a little more comfortable, and Jongdae isn’t so eager to break it. Kyungsoo may seem tough with his quiet, slightly stand-offish personality and the fact that eighty-percent of his body is metal, but Jongdae’s beginning to think that’s all just a misconception. “You said you and Baekhyun work together,” he blurts, because now that his mind isn’t so foggy and he can _kind of_ process everything, he wants to fill out all the potholes of knowledge in his head. “What is it that you do, exactly?”

A beat of silence, and then another, stretching out into the space to the point where it’s just plain _uncomfortable_ and Jongdae isn’t quite sure as to why.

“Just… odd jobs,” Kyungsoo says eventually, still facing out at the stars. “Did you have an economic role within your society?”

Jongdae laughs at that despite himself, the smoothness in which Kyungsoo says such rough wording. “Yes I-- I um, think I did.” He frowns at that… no, Jongdae definitely had a job. “I’m a graphic designer.” Kyungsoo blinks with his living eye. “You know... I. Draw things. For… people.”

“You’re an artist?” Kyungsoo asks, ears perking up a little as his forehead raises and Jongdae assumes that he’s _impressed_.

“Not a very good one,” Jongdae insists, waving his hands. “But um, apparently. Yeah.”

Kyungsoo looks amused at that, smiling smally at Jongdae’s own self-doubt when it comes to basic facts about himself, and Jongdae returns it equally as hesitantly.

“How advanced are your people, anyway?” Kyungsoo asks, and Jongdae racks his brain in order to think about an answer to that.

“Well, we aren’t intergalactic space travel advanced, but we can get to the moon and nearly travel to Mars-- um, one of the other planets in our solar system,” Jongdae hastily tacks on. “None of your… fancy holo-screen stuff or UTCs though.”

Kyungsoo hums. “It’s interesting, in a way,” he says, mulling over his words carefully, like he isn’t quite sure how he wants to vocalise his thoughts. “How many sentient civilisations are out there, having no idea of what surrounds them, and us, them.” Kyungsoo bites his cheek, still in thought. “There’s an entire galactic union out here between hundreds of species and yet not a single one of them would know what a human is.”

Jongdae suddenly feels very, very small.

“The universe is a big place,” he squeaks, coming out a little more pathetically than he would have liked it to no thanks to the voice crack, too. Swallowing, Jongdae asks, “Are you sure you’ll be able to get me… back?”

Kyungsoo’s body stiffens in a way that’s almost imperceptible, but in the quiet Jongdae catches it, the clench of his fist, the shift of metal plating against metal.

“We’ll try our best,” Kyungsoo eventually reassures, but it’s funny, because Jongdae doesn’t feel reassured in the slightest.

  
  


 

 

The rest of the journey from Kotehedron to Aelia passes just like that, with Jongdae and Baekhyun spending the empty time together via aimless conversations and too many holo-games, and Kyungsoo trying to keep to himself as much as possible. It’s difficult, when Jongdae is just… so _good_ at this, asking questions that can’t be left unanswered, filling out the space, bringing a strange sort of light to the ship that had previously lacked such a thing. He’s hard to ignore with his bright smiles and easygoingness, the fact that he’s fucking abandoned in space light years away from his home doing nothing to kill his mood, and it’s admirable, if not a little heartbreaking, because Kyungsoo isn’t sure for how much longer he can keep up all this dishonesty, let alone actually break the _truth_. They can’t afford Jongdae trying anything stupid that might jeopardize himself, the ship, or the job, which is why Kyungsoo is so invested in keeping him complacent, and therefore struggles to ignore him.

Maybe Kyungsoo should just send Jongdae an e-card. _Sorry for lying, but the truth is that we’re meant to be selling you and still haven’t technically made up our minds on it_. But Jongdae doesn’t even have a personal comm, and _shit_. The more time that passes, the harder it becomes to think about, because Baekhyun is nothing if not prone to wearing his hearts on his sleeve, and his affection for Jongdae increases with each nano-period, contagious in the evident joy he gets from having someone to talk with other than Kyungsoo. Counter to that, five _million_ credits is a lot. Enough for Kyungsoo to pay Lu Han back, break his bond, enough for Baekhyun to… Kyungsoo doesn’t know. He’s always ever been a thief because that’s what he’s good at and it’s what Lu Han needed him to be, and Baekhyun, an extension of that, because that’s what _Kyungsoo_ had needed him to be, but with enough money between them to leave that behind… what happens?

And now there’s Jongdae, who they’d never meant to host, but couldn’t just imprisonor dump in the middle of nowhere, and he’s wormed his way into the ship, filling out the third seat, leaves his scent in Kyungsoo’s sheets when he sleeps and is so… eager, to be a part of this, _everything_ , handling the fact that he’s in the middle of space a million light years from home like it’s nothing. It’s more than just admirable, and it makes Kyungsoo’s stomachs twist.

Maybe they really can’t sell Jongdae, Kyungsoo is quickly coming to realise, and maybe some part of him has always known that. They don’t do things like live-trade, that has always been his and Baekhyun’s rule, first and foremost above all --Drovaryians don’t break their own code, and Kyungsoo, funnily enough, is no exception to that-- and it's not like they're prepared to be smugglers, either. But can they back out of a ten million job so easily, either way? What would the buyer want with some… random frozen alien, and why the hell would Lu Han have accepted the job if he'd known that was the case?

Kyungsoo has never enjoyed playing other people’s games, but how can he help it, when he’s nothing but a little piece on a much, much bigger board.

Kyungsoo docks the ship in a lot not too far from Chanyeol’s place, flicking the engines off while still deep in thought about the whole situation. It’s a fucking mess, and Kyungsoo is very aware of the fact, having cornered Baekhyun the cycle prior and quietly reminded him to not get attached, yet here Kyungsoo was, dealing with the exact same problem. Jongdae is lost and alone and fighting despite of that, and Kyungsoo is in a whole pile of shit.

The sunny smile doesn’t help, Kyungsoo thinks, as Jongdae looks out the front window in awe. Aelia is a temperate place, covered in thick rainforests and cloaked in humidity; luckily the civilised parts are enough to be groomed and bearable, but the forests still lurk around the boundary, always waiting to grow and claim back what is rightfully theirs.

“Home sweet home,” Baekhyun breathes out, and Kyungsoo clenches his jaw. Home is  _here_ , on the Moonlight, but Kyungsoo's never had the heart(s) to correct Baekhyun on that.

Jongdae seems startled by the weather as he tentatively steps out, craning his neck in an attempt to get a 360 view of the entire planet.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen…” he says, squinting into the sky and smiling in delight at the sight of the four suns, running his hands over the leaves of a trill bush as they walk past. “On Earth all the plants are like, green, mostly?”

“Really?” Baekhyun asks, ears flicking. “It’s like that on Kuhonia --uh, my home planet-- too.”

Kyungsoo can’t relate. Drovarys doesn’t even _have_ plants.

“Depends on the suns I suppose,” Kyungsoo comments, and watches with confliction as Jongdae admires the blue and purple and pink leafed plants in awe. “You coming?”

“Sorry,” Jongdae quickly apologises, and double steps to keep up, adjusting the sheer grey scarf around his neck -- _Kyungsoo’s_ scarf-- stripping off Baekhyun’s oversized jacket. They could have readjusted the material until it fit Jongdae more snugly, but there had been something about the puffiness of the item that had been so cute, Kyungsoo and Baekhyun had had some weird silent agreement about never teaching Jongdae how to.

Jongdae coughs wetly in the air, grimacing, but covers it up with a smile before Kyungsoo can even finish giving him a questioning look, falling into step beside him. The streets of Aelia are completely empty, at such an early period of the planet’s day.

“So this friend of yours,” Jongdae starts, sniffling once, boots clicking upon the paving. “How will he be able to work out where I’m from?”

“Carbon-date you, analyze trace signatures in your atoms and give a rough estimate to where they’re from, compare you to the Union’s database and radiation levels and stuff,” Baekhyun shrugs like it’s all basic know-how, but Jongdae’s jaw just hangs open, causing Kyungsoo to stifle a laugh.

“He’s a doctor,” Kyungsoo clarifies. “So don’t worry. He knows how to handle all types of species and he’ll know what he’s doing.”

“He’s the one who built Kyungsoo’s rockin’ bod’,” Baekhyun adds with a cheeky grin, thudding against the metal of Kyungsoo’s shoulder to prove a point, as the latter just gives him a pointed glare. “Totally trustworthy.”

Jongdae gives Baekhyun an unimpressed look which Kyungsoo laughs at, but the moment is cut short as Baekhyun bumps into someone on the sidewalk and the person in question scowls, _watch it, kitty_.

“Fleudrians,” Baekhyun explains with a huff as Jongdae’s jaw drops while his eyes follow the sight of the giant, oozing blob. “Ugly fellows. Pretty on the inside.” Baekhyun pauses. “Hopefully.”

As Jongdae asks a follow-up question about some of the other species mulling about, Kyungsoo falls back a step and texts Chanyeol, _On our way_.

 _See u soon_ is his prompt response, and Kyungsoo shuts the comm-panel with a sigh, running a metal hand through his hair. Of course he’d told Chanyeol as little as possible ahead of time about their little guest and Chanyeol, as always, had asked as little questions as possible. Still, Kyungsoo isn’t sure just _what_ they’ll discover about Jongdae from all of this, and just how much it may change things.

Baekhyun knocks against the steel door of Chanyeol’s workshop as soon as they arrive, and there’s the distinct sound of cluttering behind it before it springs open, revealing a grinning, grease-stained Chanyeol.

“Come in come in,” he waves them in happily, carefully moving a bunch of metal parts and scraps to a bench seat in the living room and gestures for Jongdae to take a seat, who hesitantly acquiesces once Kyungsoo gives him an encouraging nod. Chanyeol’s house slash clinic slash workshop is always a mess, covered with spare parts of machinery and too many holo-screens spilling out from his comm. He bats them all away with a sigh, mumbling to himself, and then eventually pulls out a pair of thick-framed glasses and blinks at Jongdae.

“Well what do we have here?” He asks, as Jongdae swallows and leans back at the way Chanyeol towers over him, nearly twice his height. He has to duck just to fit into his own house, and it’s one of the drawbacks to being Vaeridian --no one accommodates for size. “Jongdae, is it?” Tentatively, Jongdae nods. “I’m Chanyeol,” Chanyeol offers, grinning. “What did you say you were again?”

“Human…?” Jongdae answers weakly, and Chanyeol purses his lips, mouth twisting.

“Definitely never heard of them before,” he mutters, then turns to Baekhyun and Kyungsoo with a grin. “This might take a period or two, I’m guessing you guys don’t want to sit around and watch since you have a Lu Han to visit.”

“I don’t mind,” Kyungsoo says at the same time Baekhyun answers, “Not particularly.”

Kyungsoo gives Baekhyun a pointed glare because Jongdae looks miles out of his comfort zone right now, but Jongdae just says, “It’s fine.” Giving them both a crooked little smile. “I can trust Chanyeol, right?”

“Of course!!!” Chanyeol is quick to argue, antennae flicking in offense.

“Yes, you can,” Kyungsoo replies, biting on his lip and running his tongue along the metal seams in the corner. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? We’re only visiting Lu Han a few districts down--”

“I’ll be fine,” Jongdae reassures, shooing them out. “Just go.”

Kyungsoo frowns, but obliges, and tugs Chanyeol close to mutter, “If you hurt him…”

“Soo,” Baekhyun warns, a hand around his wrist and a stern glare at the way Jongdae blinks at them innocently. Chanyeol just smiles, shoving off the rows of his pointed teeth, but Kyungsoo reluctantly allows himself to pulled outside, watching the door as it closes behind him.

  
  


 

 

Baekhyun sighs.

“You’d think you’d trust the guy that brought you back to life, you know,” he starts, watching as Kyungsoo tenses by the control panel, fingers hesitating before finishing off the final touches to start the engine.

“It’s _because_ he brought me back to life that I don’t trust him,” Kyungsoo mutters, pulling the ship out of its docking spot. “Chanyeol operates in shades of grey… I can never know what he’s thinking.”

“But he has no reason to harm Jongdae, you do realise,” Baekhyun counters. “They’ll be fine. It wouldn’t kill you to trust Chanyeol.”

“It might,” Kyungsoo mutters. Baekhyun knows that Vaeridians are finicky on the best of days, but Chanyeol is, unfortunately, the only resource they’ve got. Kyungsoo undoubtedly recognises that they have to oblige to his rules of privacy and whatnot if they want his help at all, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.

“He just likes yanking your chain,” Baekhyun tries, reassuring. “Don’t worry about it too much.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t reply; Baekhyun sighs all over again.

Lu Han’s outpost is towards the outskirts of the capital, hidden in dense foliage between mountains. It’s dramatic and over-the-top as all things Lu Han are, but Baekhyun isn’t exactly the right person to criticize him for it. Before they’ve even landed Baekhyun can spot Minseok from the front window impatiently a splash of dark blue and silver, tapping a hoof with his arms folded, and as soon as the docking bay descends he says, “You’re late.”

“Or you’re just early,” Baekhyun grins charmingly, yelping when Minseok pinches the back of his neck, rubbing it dejectedly.

“This better be good,” Minseok tells Kyungsoo, ignoring Baekhyun altogether. Ah, it’s good to be back. “Your buyer isn’t happy about the detour.”

“Our buyer can _dra’kesh_ ,” Kyungsoo says, making the flicking gesture with his fingers upon his forehead that Baekhyun recognises as a Drovaryian swear akin to _go fuck themselves_. Kyungsoo so very rarely cusses, even in common tongue, that the sour look on Minseok’s face is oddly satisfying upon seeing it. Drovaryians, too, almost never curse, but when they do it’s-- Well.

“Come on then,” Minseok says cooly, and gestures towards the path that will lead them to Lu Han’s house. Baekhyun has always been curious about what it is that Minseok _does_ here, other than act like a glorified bodyguard and maid, but, like all things Lu Han related, it simply isn’t his place to ask.

“Well, well, well if it isn’t my favourite little _tai’veshk_ ,” Lu Han says with a wry smile, lying lazily on the couch as Kyungsoo rolls his eye at the nickname, still standing by the entryway. It’s Drovaryian for _tailless one_ , Kyungsoo had admitted to Baekhyun quietly -- _not_ his Drovaryian name-- once upon a time, but not an affectionate term, even if Lu Han’s usage begs to differ. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“It’s about the job,” Kyungsoo says, and flips open the panel in his arm, allowing two holo-screens to pop out. One, a photo of the pod left open on their ship Kyungsoo must have snapped, the other, a picture of Jongdae, taken stealthily while he and Baekhyun had played a round of nine-three-one together. (Jongdae is good enough to _beat_ Baekhyun, at this stage, and it’s oddly depressing.)

“What am I looking at, exactly?” Lu Han asks with a pointed brow beneath his branching, Drovaryian horns, but Baekhyun sees the way his left hand clenches, the steeliness in Minseok’s eyes as he stands behind him. There’s a reason why Kyungsoo hadn’t given any rhyme or reason to their little visit, or why he didn’t exactly call about all this ahead of time --catching one off-guard, is the easiest way to get the truth.

“ _This_ , is what we picked up off of Omega 9,” Kyungsoo says, enlarging the picture of the opened pod. “And this is what came out of it.” The picture changes to the slightly blurry image of Jongdae, smiling at Baekhyun, out of the frame.

“An abduction victim?” Minseok asks, taken aback. Lu Han inhales sharply.

“That can’t be right,” he says, furrowing his eyebrows and sitting up a little straighter. “We have a deal about that. You know I don’t dishonour my deals, _tai’veshk_.”

“And yet Baekhyun and I have been carting around an illegal alien for the past few loops,” he responds with a scowl, causing Lu Han to frown. “So what the fuck kind of buyer are we dealing with, exactly?”

“Just-- an artifact collector, I've worked with them before,” Lu Han says, and Baekhyun breathes out unsteadily. “I assumed the Cyrilla 5 drop-off point was for secrecy purposes. You know how the black market is, I never thought--” Lu Han shakes his head.

“Well congratulations, you tried to make _your_ slave contribute to the slave market,” Baekhyun hisses, hackles raising before Kyungsoo puts a hand on his shoulder to still him, instinctively leaning into the cold, insensitive touch. “Don’t break deals my _ass_.”

“I _don’t_.” Lu Han counters, sternly, standing. “Now if you feel like putting your kitty here on a leash--”

“ _Enough_ , both of you.” Kyungsoo interjects, as Minseok still leans against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, face unreadable. Kyungsoo turns to Lu Han. “The job is off. Tell the buyer we withdraw.”

“You can’t do that,” Lu Han says, face sour. “There’s _millions_ of credits on the line here, Soo, you can’t be serious.”

“Lu Han,” Minseok warns, eerily calm.

“No, I’m not fucking around here,” Lu Han continues. “Even if that much fucking money wasn’t on offer you think the buyer is just going to let you walk away with something so valuable?”

“Say we got a better deal, say we lost it, got robbed, I don’t care,” Kyungsoo glares up at Lu Han, red eyes glowing. “I’m not _selling_ Jongdae into the slave market or the collectors market or _whatever_ they want with him, Lu Han. And that’s final.”

The sternness of his voice, the rigidity of his body as he attempts to size up to Lu Han, a full head taller than him with both horns still intact, three tails swaying behind him agitatedly… the sight sets both of Baekhyun’s hearts on fire. Baekhyun’s not dumb, he’s never been on board with selling Jongdae, right from the start, but Baekhyun isn’t the boss here, it’s _Kyungsoo_. No matter how attached Baekhyun has gotten, if Kyungsoo had said they’d sell Jongdae, then Baekhyun would have agreed to it, eventually --albeit reluctantly.

But here, now, choosing what’s right regardless, standing up for everything Baekhyun has been through in front of Lu Han, well… it makes Baekhyun feel… _different_.

“They're not smugglers, Lu,” Minseok says quietly, and Lu Han’s shoulders fall. “That’s always been the deal.”

“This is so fucked up,” Lu Han laughs harshly, running a hand between his horns. “The buyer won’t be happy... You’re putting yourselves in danger. You’re putting _all_ of us in danger.”

“Isn’t that why you’re in the middle of nowhere to begin with?” Baekhyun bites out bitterly. “We’re the ones dealing with the consequence of your shitty information, so don’t berate us for _your_ mistakes.”

“We wouldn’t _be_ in this situation if you idiots hadn’t opened the pod to begin with,” Lu Han hisses, and Kyungsoo sighs all over again.

“Who’s to blame doesn’t fucking matter right now,” he snaps, stepping between Baekhyun and Lu Han. “All that matters is we find out what Jongdae is, where he comes from, and put him back immediately.” Baekhyun lowers his tails, slowly. “Something about him is… different. I don’t think this is a simple case of slavery, the circumstances are too… unusual.”

“Kyungsoo is right,” Minseok adds, pushing forward from the wall. He gestures to the holo-screen still hovering between them. “Whatever that pod thing is, however this... Jongdae had been inside it… we’re missing something here. Something important about him or his species.” Minseok’s white eyes narrow at the image that floats mid-air, Baekhyun and Lu Han make tense eye contact before returning to watching Minseok. “I don’t think it’s fair to make a decision about any of this until we know the whole picture.”

Kyungsoo’s fists clench and unclench at his sides. “Whether we’re selling him into scientific research or slavery, I still don’t want any part of it.”

“For all we know he could be a ticking time bomb set to destroy the entire galaxy,” Minseok adds drily. “Just because you’ve formed an attachment to your little pet doesn’t mean the choice is that simple.”

Baekhyun growls low in his throat, but only because Minseok is right, and he hates the fact. There’s so much they don’t know about Jongdae, and as harmless as he seems--

“Call Chanyeol,” Lu Han says. “I want to know what he’s found out, and I want his opinion, too.”

The pictures flicker in mid-air, as Kyungsoo obliges and changes to the call option on his comm, and Chanyeol picks up with wide eyes, confused.

“What’s up?” He asks, noting Lu Han’s straight face as his antennae flick anxiously. “What do you need?”

“What have you worked out so far about Jongdae?” Lu Han requests, since Chanyeol, like Kyungsoo, is indebted to him too, and will like, actually listen to what he tells him to do.

“Ummmmmmm,” Chanyeol says. “About Jongdae-- funny story actually.”

Baekhyun and Kyungsoo look at each other. “What?” Baekhyun says.

“He kind of… ran away?”

“ _Chanyeol_ ,” Kyungsoo says lowly, red eyes glowing. “What the hell did you do?”

Chanyeol holds up his hands in surrender. “I just said some stuff and he freaked out and wouldn’t listen to me! It’s not like it’s _my_ job to track him down, you know, I was _just_ about to call you--” he rubs the back of his neck.

“God you’re useless,” Kyungsoo scowls, and Chanyeol smiles apologetically before Kyungsoo angrily hangs up. “Baekhyun--”

“I’ll go get him,” Baekhyun says. “You stay here and try to work out as much as you can about the buyer and stuff.” Baekhyun swallows. “I promise I’ll find him.”

“I know you will,” Kyungsoo says reassuringly, with a light squeeze to Baekhyun’s forearm. “Go.”

No need to tell him twice.

  
  


 

 

As soon as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are out of the building, Jongdae feels on edge.

It doesn’t help that Chanyeol is two metres tall and bright red, with long, feather-like antennae sticking out above his oversized, pointed ears, rows and rows of pointed teeth and covered in black stripes along his crimson skin. Between that and all the grease stains, the way he grins at Jongdae like he’s just found a new toy… well, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo had said to trust him, but Jongdae’s not really sure he _wants_ to.

“So tell me about yourself, Jongdae,” Chanyeol pulls up a chair, and sits on it backwards, resting his chin in his palm. “You think you were abducted?”

“Um,” Jongdae answers, twiddling his thumbs together. “I… guess? I just like, randomly woke up in deep space so. You know…”

Chanyeol hums, assessing Jongdae with fluorescent-green-rimmed brown eyes, glowing in the lowlight of his workshop… or uh, maybe this is just the living room? Jongdae frowns.

“Do you remember anything about the abduction, or how you got here?” Jongdae shakes his head. “Interesting. Memory loss isn’t a common side effect of alien abduction…” He taps the top of his chair. “I mean, it’s fairly common to abduct _known_ species for black market purposes and slave labour, but capturing a sentient species that isn’t a part of the union, well…” Chanyeol’s mouth twists. “It’s almost kind of pointless. UTCs aren’t exactly cheap, and you have no knowledge of the common culture or tongue. There’s a prize to be won in the discovery of new species but that’s only through establishing contact, picking one out of the lot isn’t great. I suppose if your species is used for pet purposes, then that’s an entirely different thing altogether…”

His incessant rambling of the topic is causing Jongdae’s blood to drain at the thought, knowing that any of the above might have been the reason for his kidnapping, might have happened to other people like him too. And if all this _is_ the case, then why the hell had Jongdae been chosen, or had it been at random, and how the hell did Baekhyun and Kyungsoo find him? Kyungsoo had said they simply worked ‘odd jobs’ across the galaxy, but something about the way he’d said it, well…

“Not to worry! You’re in good hands now,” Chanyeol reassures, slapping Jongdae enough for him to stumble forward a little bit, nearly slipping off the cot before righting himself and sending Chanyeol a dirty look that goes unnoticed. Chanyeol starts wandering around the room and pulling out strange devices before pointing them at Jongdae, scanning them over his body. Chanyeol plucks some hair and swabs Jongdae’s mouth with half-hearted apologies as he sets the tiny samples through some microwave looking thing in the corner of the room, a holo-screen popping up displaying an x-ray of Jongdae’s body and his heart beat --slightly accelerated in Chanyeol’s presence.

“Only one heart huh,” Chanyeol notes, but before Jongdae can even follow up to _that_ Chanyeol’s moving again, pressing strange things against his skin and reading assorted holo-screens with various expressions. At one stage, Jongdae is overwhelmed with the urge to cough, and he thinks, _not now_. _Please not now_.

It’s filling his throat though, pushing him to the point of tears, and just as Chanyeol has his back turned at the opposite end of the room, Jongdae’s coughing discretely into the palm of his hand, about to wipe the splatter of blood off on the black of his pants before Chanyeol’s oversized hand wraps around his wrist, holding him in place.

“Interesting,” he says, and Jongdae sharply inhales because he isn’t sure how Chanyeol had gotten from the edge of the room to _here_ , and just how much strength he’s holding to keep Jongdae’s wrist in place like that. Chanyeol tilts his head. “Is this blood, mucus, or some other kind of substance?”

“Blood,” Jongdae admits quietly, as Chanyeol quickly puts on protective gloves and easily scrapes the black, clotted goo onto a petri dish to be examined no doubt. He smiles wryly.

“I’m guessing your species isn’t supposed to do that?” Jongdae nods in agreement. “You’re sick, then. Is it fatal?”

“Yes,” Jongdae replies, sighing and slumping into himself with guilt. Now he’s totally screwed, because no one wants an infected dying animal on their ship, just like nobody on earth wanted him around if they’d found out and--

“Then I’ll find you a cure before that fatality can kick in,” Chanyeol comments offhandedly, and Jongdae blinks at him dumbly because surely it’s not that easy…? “What? Infections are simple to cure with anti-microbial nanobots, I’ll just need to fiddle around a little before I can find the right dosage.” Chanyeol shrugs, and Jongdae feels his entire viewpoint shatter. “I’ve seen similar infections in other species, it won’t be hard.”

Blinking because his vision has gone blurry, it takes a little while for Jongdae to realise he’s _crying_ , wiping away his tears on the backs of his hands. Ugh, he doesn’t even know _why_ he’s crying, he’s just--

“I never thought there’d be a cure,” he admits, sniffling, as Chanyeol looks at him with a mix between concern and possibly disgust. Jongdae laughs. “If I’d known the answer was in deep space, I would’ve looked here sooner.” Jongdae curls into himself instinctively. “My whole life, I thought I’d been living on a countdown, but now--” his eyes widen in realisation. “I have to take the cure back. I have to-- my entire planet, this infection, it’s all--”

“I don’t think I have that many nanobots on hand,” Chanyeol mumbles indifferently, flipping open one of his holo-screens and reading over it with furrowed eyebrows.

“Then make more, please, you have to--”

“Jongdae--”

“-- _Millions_ are going to die because of this infection and we can’t cure it you have to--”

“ _Jongdae_.” Chanyeol says tensely, his face devoid of any of the strange lightheartedness before, causing Jongdae to falter. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?” Jongdae argues, defensive, and then Chanyeol’s eyes go soft. “Surely it’s possible to help at least a little--”

“Because your species went extinct seven-hundred-and-sixty two bands ago.” Chanyeol interrupts, and Jongdae’s heartbeat _stops_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for drug usage/alcohol consumption (or the alien equivalent) & suicidal imagery

The silence around him is deafening.

“What do you mean?” Jongdae asks, voice hollow, and he’s looking for the joke in Chanyeol’s face maybe, for him to suddenly go _April fools!_ Even though the Gregorian calendar doesn’t exactly exist out here.

“At first, I thought the mass-spec was broken,” Chanyeol explains, as Jongdae watches him with wide eyes, speechless. “Because here you were, morphologically 33 bands old but physically the carbon 14 in your cells, well--” Chanyeol swallows. “Gave a time period of 2033 bands, which couldn’t be right, and just didn’t make sense, but…” If Jongdae is 26 _years_ old but 33 bands… then that would mean the carbon 14 in his cells had revealed a time period of about, 1600 years, and his people had been dead for over 600 of them --according to Chanyeol, if Jongdae’s panicked mental calculations are anything to go by.  “But then I compared your DNA to the database of known species, for any known common ancestors or solar systems where such structure is common and, _well_ …” Chanyeol trails off, biting his cheek.

“Tell me.” Jongdae says sternly, impossibly still.

“The union didn’t know you as _humans_ , we knew you as _Terrans_.” Chanyeol explains. “Your species had made first contact around… 1143 bands ago? But that had only been through radio waves and time capsules, and SOS messages.” Jongdae’s blood turns to ice. “By the time anyone actually found your solar system, your planet had died, drained of all its resources, the physical environment far too damaged to sustain life.” Chanyeol’s antennae flick. “Plenty of historians and excavation crews tried to record as much as your people’s culture as possible but, well. A lot of it had been destroyed.”

Jongdae can hear his heartbeat in his own ears, thudding around his head. “It’s pretty common,” Chanyeol continues regardless. “It’s not the first ecosystem this has happened to and it won’t be the last--”

“Then what am I?” Jongdae asks quietly, staring at his hands, but Chanyeol is still talking. “What the hell am I?” Jongdae tries again, louder, cutting Chanyeol off mid-sentence. “If-- if everyone’s _dead_ ,” and has been for quite some time, Jongdae’s mind uselessly adds. “Then why-- why am I--”

“I don’t know,” Chanyeol admits. “But I have a feeling that it has to do with your unaged state.” He lets out a huff of air. “Gosh this is fascinating, isn’t it?”

“ _Fascinating_?” Jongdae repeats, laughing incredulously. “I just found out everything I’ve ever known died out thousands of bands ago and you think it’s _fascinating_.”

Chanyeol opens his mouth, closes it. “Look, I’m sorry for what happened to you Jongdae, but there’s nothing we can do now.” Right, of course there isn’t. Jongdae is hopeless to think otherwise. “It’s terrible and awful and I’m sorry you had to find out this way, but at the very least, this will explain a lot.” Chanyeol huffs the bangs out of his face as he swipes through the holo-screens. “Like why Baekhyun and Kyungsoo were hired to steal you or why there’s such a big price tag on your head because _really_ , you’re thousands of bands old! You’re a living, breathing, ancient artifact of a forgotten world, no wonder--”

Jongdae’s entire body tenses. “What did you say?”

“That you’re an ancient artifact?” Chanyeol offers.

“Before that.” Jongdae reiterates, detached.

“The… reason why they were hired to steal you? You’re a priceless piece of history, truly--”

“What do you mean _stole?_ ” Jongdae hisses, and Chanyeol blinks at him innocently, tilting his head.

“What do _you--_ ” realisation crosses his face, antennae drooping. “They... didn’t tell you what they were, did they?”

Jongdae swallows. “And what would that be, exactly?”

Chanyeol answers simply. “Thieves.” Jongdae inhales. “Criminals for hire, that sort of thing. Like bounty hunters but for objects instead of people.” He looks at Jongdae curiously. “I assumed they would’ve told you all this, what with… you being on their ship.”

“Well,” Jongdae says drily, and at this stage, the emotions in his chest are too complicated to put a label to them. Anger, frustration, sadness and despair all muddled into one big ugly ball. “They didn’t.”

“Kyungsoo is going to be _so_ mad at me,” Chanyeol mumbles, then blinks as Jongdae stands, pulling his jacket back on. “Where are you going?”

“Out.” Jongdae replies promptly, as the walls begin closing in on him and it desperately gets harder to breathe, surrounded by clutter and mess and _suffocating_. “Anywhere but here I-- I need to think.”

“You shouldn’t go out on your own Baekhyun and Kyungsoo will--”

“Will what?” Jongdae asks rhetorically, venomous. “Punish me? Torture me? They didn’t exactly strike me as the type to harm their scores from _work_ but hey, they’re full of surprises, who even knows!”

“Jongdae you can’t just--”

“Just what? Go for a walk? Try to process even a fucking single piece of all of this!” His voice breaks off, choked, and Chanyeol’s body stills. “Just leave me alone, Chanyeol, I’ll be back eventually.” Jongdae walks out the front door, which automatically springs open as he steps towards it. “Not like I have anywhere else to go anyway…” he mumbles, and resists the urge to cry.

  
  
  
  


Kyungsoo doesn’t like being alone in a room with Lu Han, even if Minseok, as always, is by his side, too. He can’t help feeling outnumbered, and gently closes his living eye, wishing that Baekhyun could like, magically come back in an instant with Jongdae in one piece, or something.

But he isn’t, and he won’t, so Kyungsoo needs to fight his own battle. Alone.

“Call the deal off,” he says, cutting through the strange silence. “We’re not going through with it.” Whatever Jongdae is or isn't, Kyungsoo doesn't care. The job. Is. Off. 

Lu Han’s face shrivels up, unhappy, before he curtly says, “Fine.” Opening up a comm panel and smiling into it as soon as whoever’s on the other end picks up. Kyungsoo can’t quite make out their face through the poor lighting and bad camera --which, in hindsight, is probably a purposeful decision.

“Hello, doctor?” Lu Han greets, smiling fakely. “There’s been a problem with the artifact.” He warily looks at Kyungsoo behind the screen.

“What do you mean?” The buyer replies, voice warbled and edited through the comm link. Kyungsoo narrows his eyes at how hard they’re trying to hide themselves.

“Well,” he laughs. “You see, it turns out it’s not a fucking artifact. But I believe you already knew that, didn’t you?”

The figure freezes, a tense line going through their body.

“What does it matter?” They ask. “I’m paying you, aren’t I?”

“Well, my colleagues aren't exactly smugglers, are they?” He asks rhetorically, with a bitter little smile. Minseok’s eyes harden behind him, face unreadable. Kyungsoo doesn’t really know where Minseok had come from, just that one day he was with Lu Han and inseparable about it and neither of them had ever elaborated any further than that. But there is a bond around above his hoof, and a hardness to his eyes that Kyungsoo recognises, that makes Lu Han wonder where exactly it is that he found himself a zequajin slave. “And I personally don’t like it when a buyer lies to me about what they want. If you can’t even be truthful about the object, then how can you be truthful about the money?”

“You’re making a mistake,” the buyer says, eerily calm. “I will have what is rightfully mine, whether you try to steal it from me or not.”

“Good day, doctor,” Lu Han says, in a way that almost makes Kyungsoo laugh at just how much he doesn’t _care_ , clicking the comm shut and turning to Kyungsoo immediately. “You’re messing with something extremely big here, I hope you realise that.”

Kyungsoo realised that the moment Lu Han said _five million credits each_.

“I know,” Kyungsoo replies, softly, and wonders just what it _is_ about Jongdae that makes him so valuable. Even if he is an unknown species, surely it isn’t hard to get others like him, unless, for some reason, humans were _rare_. But the way Jongdae had spoken about earth made it seem as densely populated as any other large society, so… why?

Whatever the reason is, it practically doesn’t matter, Kyungsoo realises, because either way, that threat had left pricks of ice along his skin, and he doesn’t like the fact that Jongdae is now, no thanks to him, in danger, and Baekhyun too, by extension. Kyungsoo has spent a decent part of his life protecting Baekhyun ever since he’d first saw his dirt-streaked face and defiant eyes, the way the hardness in them had seemed familiar to Kyungsoo, in a twisted way, giving him the instinctive urge to _help_. Of course, it’s evolved to such a point that Baekhyun protects him equally as much to the extremes of codependency in a way that neither of them ever acknowledge or talk about, but that’s neither here nor there.

“What are you going to do?” Minseok calmly asks, noting the look on Kyungsoo’s face as he swallows, fists clenching and unclenching by his side.

It is not the first time Kyungsoo has been asked such a thing, and it’s not the first time he doesn’t have an answer. Everything that’s wrapped around Jongdae leaves Kyungsoo more confused and worried with each passing micro-period, although he’s not sure how much of that has to do with protecting himself and Baekhyun, and how much of that has to do with protecting Jongdae, because whether he likes it or not, Jongdae’s carved out a space for himself in Kyungsoo’s other heart, and he doesn’t know what to do about that at all. The fact that he could be in danger… well, it makes Kyungsoo sick.

“I don’t know,” he answers. The silence is deafening.

  
  
  
  


The streets of Aelia, Jongdae quickly discovers, are far busier later in the cycle, flooded with aliens -- _species_ \-- of all shapes and sizes, to the point that it would almost be considered overwhelming, if Jongdae had room to care.

Fortunately --or, rather _unfortunately_ \-- it was hard to be overwhelmed by the sheer bizarreness of it all, when Jongdae was a little too caught up in his own thoughts and subsequent panic attack.

Namely over the fact that he was the last human alive.

Stopping in the middle of the street --causing nearby people to bump into him and yell profanities-- it finally hits Jongdae, how old he is, how far he is from home, which is now _gone_ completely, and how he’s the only fucking human left alive in the entire universe.

Surrounded by people twice his size, Jongdae suddenly feels very, very small, and very, very alone.

It’s funny that the one time he actually wants to cry, he just can’t do it, far too wrung out for tears, hyperventilating instead. Jongdae sits by the edge of the sidewalk uncaring, curling into himself, and resting his forehead against his knees, steadying his breath. No one pays him any mind, not even a second glance, and Jongdae wouldn’t have it any other way, attempting to relish in the open air.

He’s not sure for how long he stays like that, curled up on the side of the street with his eyes squeezed shut, as if somehow, he’ll wake up from all of this, like it’s just a bad dream, and Jongdeok will tease him for being so lazy when Jongdae sleeps past his alarm and forgets to call their mother to wish her a good week--

Slowly, Jongdae opens his eyes, and he’s still there, on the street edge, wishing that everything Chanyeol had told him was untrue, wishing that Baekhyun and Kyungsoo hadn’t lied to him this whole time, wishing all of this could go away and he could just--

“Um,” Jongdae looks up, blinking when he realises the voice is addressed to him, a figure standing to his left. “Sorry but… are you okay?”

Due to the light from the four suns, it’s hard to make out the shape of the person in the glare, as Jongdae squints up helplessly.

“I just found out everyone and everything I’ve ever known is dead, and the only people out here I could trust have been lying to me,” Jongdae goes back to staring at his feet --black morphing boots courtesy of Baekhyun.

“Oh,” the stranger says lamely. “Sounds rough.” Jongdae, despite everything, laughs, even as the stranger sits beside him on the gutter, and for the first time Jongdae gets a proper look at them. Although it’s hard to tell if they’re an alien or a… _Plant._ Their skin is brown and fibrous, like twisted roots, with leaves curling around their head and shoulders, along their arms, thin, tendril like vines, that flicker with sentience even as the stranger sits still. They don’t have normal eyes, so much as they have two hollow cavity with two tiny glowing green lights, looking down at Jongdae unblinkingly. It is both terrifying, unnerving, and oddly beautiful.

“What?” The stranger tilts their head, gnarled skin around their mouth twisting in the imitation of a smile. “Is there something on my face?” Green vines fan across said face curiously, as Jongdae quickly shakes his head. “Then why do you look like you’ve never seen a Lanairan before…?”

“Um,” Jongdae squeaks out. “Because I haven’t…?”

The Lanairan --whatever the hell that is-- evidently doesn’t blink, but they do stare at Jongdae at a lack of what to say.

“Sehun!” A voice shouts, and the Lanairan turns around. “There you are.” This person, Jongdae thinks, looks a lot different to Sehun. Half the height, for starters, with light blue skin and four bright red eyes which peer at Jongdae curiously, framed by short-cropped brown hair hanging over two long, pointed ears. “Jongin told you to wait outside.”

“I’m outside, aren’t I?” Sehun counters with a smirk, causing the other stranger to stick their tongue out, turning to look at Jongdae beside Sehun curiously. “Yerim this is…”

“Jongdae.”

“Jongdae,” Sehun finishes. “He’s had a rough day.”

Jongdae snorts.

“He could have a twelve feet on one leg and I still wouldn’t get your point,” Yerim turns up her nose, which Sehun only laughs quietly at.

“The point,” Sehun begins, standing until he towers over Jongdae and Yerim both, gesturing down at Jongdae. “Is that I think he needs a drink.”

Yerim’s face scrunches. “Are you seriously hitting on someone sitting in the gutter?”

“No!” Sehun shouts, as Jongdae stands and blinks at them both helplessly. “It’s called being nice!!”

“Sure thing,” Yerim snorts, then turns to Jongdae, her four arms crossed over her chest. “So? You wanna come or not?”

Jongdae opens his mouth to say _I hardly know you_ , but that’s followed by the self-destructive thought of _who gives a fuck,_ because Jongdae has arguably just had the worst day of his life and yeah, he really could use that drink. Maybe Sehun _is_ hitting on him, or maybe he really is just that concerned for the wellbeing of random, sad strangers. Either way, Jongdae doesn’t really care.

“Why not?” He shrugs, startling Yerim and Sehun both, who exchange a look between each other, before grinning.

  
  
  
  


The flight from Lu Han’s hermit cave to the city centre leaves Baekhyun restless and antsy, practically vibrating in the pilot’s seat. Chanyeol had been as vague and useless as ever, but, just like Lu Han, he’s far more prone to less bullshitting without a screen cutting off the whole picture.

Baekhyun can also threaten him face to face, that’s another plus.

Either way, he doesn’t like the fact that Jongdae has run off, and he doesn’t like leaving Kyungsoo alone with Lu Han, either. Even if Kyungsoo was practically mentored by the guy, saved by him, blah blah blah, Baekhyun doesn’t feel comfortable separating from Kyungsoo in the slightest.

Then again, the issue is a little more complicated than that.

By the time he parks at a ship dock and sprints to Chanyeol’s house by the scrapyard, it’s already been far too many periods since they’d left Jongdae with Chanyeol.

“What the hell happened?” Baekhyun asks, and before he can even think about it, his instincts are fluctuating, hormones increasing, senses sharpening. The room reeks of grease and chemicals and scrap metal, but Chanyeol’s shock, and Jongdae’s despair, well, that’s as clear as day.

“It’s complicated,” Chanyeol shrugs. “I’m still not entirely sure what it all means, but--”

It takes two swift steps before Baekhyun is moving forward and pressing Chanyeol against the wall, tentacles raised to twisted points, growling.

“Where. Is. He.”

“If I knew I’d tell you, don’t you think?” Chanyeol smiles nervously, and Baekhyun relaxes. “You’d waste time here if I explained everything to you, Baekhyunnie. Your trail’s getting cold.”

Baekhyun scowls, and hates how indifferent to all this Chanyeol is.

“No,” Baekhyun says, calming himself, letting his tails fall back into place. “I’m not.”

Easily, Baekhyun wraps his hand around Chanyeol’s antenna, and tugs him, listening to the Vaeridian yelp in pain behind him as they stumble out the front door. The antennae are always so delicate.

“You can tell me on the way,” Baekhyun says, smiling, and listens to Chanyeol yell _ow ow ow_ before he lets go and stills, inhaling deeply as Chanyeol dejectedly rubs his antenna beside him. The air is filled with the scent of a hundred different people, but Kuhonians are predators first and foremost --Baekhyun would be a shame to his family if he couldn’t track one measly human through the fog of different scents. Of course, he’s already a shame to his entire family for abandoning Kuhonia and everything their culture stood for, but regardless.

It takes careful concentration for Baekhyun to slip into his predator state, closing his eyes and remembering what he can about Jongdae’s scent, so sharp and musky, far different to any sort of natural smell Baekhyun had encountered before.

“This way,” Baekhyun says lowly, and Chanyeol shudders.

“You know, I’ve read a lot about the Kuhonian predatory state, but the black-eye thing is a lot creepier in person.”

Baekhyun ignores that for the time being, because the start of the trail is where Jongdae’s scent is weaker, muddled. He’d bumped into so many people stumbling through the streets, and if Baekhyun wasn’t sick with worry, maybe that would be amusing.

As they near a little closer into retracing Jongdae’s steps, Baekhyun requires less concentration, which is when he turns to Chanyeol and says, “So what the hell did you find out about him?”

“Well it’s--” Chanyeol stumbles to follow as Baekhyun takes a sudden sharp left. “A little complicated.”

Baekhyun gives Chanyeol a pointed glance. Chanyeol sighs.

“Well, he calls himself human, but that species is known to the Union as Terran.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar,” Baekhyun replies, craning his neck as Jongdae’s path zigzags.

“Yes, well, that would be because they all went extinct seven hundred bands ago.”

Baekhyun stops in his tracks. Stares.

“So… what?” Baekhyun asks. “Jongdae is just-- hundreds of bands years old?” _That_ certainly didn’t make any sense. It’s not like Jongdae acted like an eternia-old fuddy-duddy, and it wasn’t as if something with a metabolism that fast could live for so long…

“Well, yes and no,” Chanyeol begins explaining, as Baekhyun continues along the path, Chanyeol double-stepping to keep up. “He’s morphologically 33 bands old, but physically he’s… over 2000.”

Baekhyun’s jaw _drops_.

At least that explains the price tag.

(And hey, he was around the same age as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo. Interesting.)

“And how does this all work out exactly?” He asks, voice a little high-pitched because, _well_. (And shit, he’s beginning to lose the scent; Baekhyun steels his breathing to refocus.)

“I’m not sure,” Chanyeol admits, furrowing his brow. “But I’m curious to find out more. The pod thing he woke up in --do you still have it?”

Baekhyun nods. Of course they do, it had seemed too important to throw away.

“I should examine it.”

“After we find Jongdae,” Baekhyun cuts in. Chanyeol grins sheepishly.

“After we find Jongdae,” he agrees, then hesitates. “He didn’t exactly take the extinction of his species particularly well,” Chanyeol says quietly, as if anyone _would_. “So be gentle when you do find him, okay?”

Baekhyun scoffs. As if anyone _wouldn’t_.

“We’re getting close,” Baekhyun notes, because there’s a strong concentration of his scent here --Jongdae must’ve stopped for quite a while-- clinging to the concrete and the air. Except, it’s mixed in rather strongly with the smell of something sweet and fruity and something _sharp_ , and Baekhyun doesn’t like that one bit.

“There’s something else,” Chanyeol starts, as they near Jongdae’s location. “Something else that upset him.”

Baekhyun throws Chanyeol a pointed glance sideways, eyebrow raised, because he’s a little confused as to what could upset him aside from the fact that he’s 2000 bands old and everyone and everything he’s ever known is _dead_.

“I _maaaaaaaaybe_ might’ve let slip what you and Kyungsoo do.”

Baekhyun stops in his tracks.

“ _Chanyeol_.”

“What? It was an accident! I didn’t realise he didn’t know!!!”

“Of course he didn’t know!” Baekhyun yells, and slips out of the predatory state because he can’t _help_ it. “You don’t tell the thing you stole that you’re the one who stole it, that’s the number one way to make it run away!!!”

“I disagree, I think Jongdae would’ve taken it well if you told him the entire truth--”

“And what?” Baekhyun argues. “Mention the fact that we stole him to _sell_ him? That we were still debating whether we would or not!?!??” Baekhyun makes a loud noise in the back of his throat. “What an excellent way to make him wary and untrustworthy!!!”

Chanyeol opens his mouth. Closes it. “Okay, fair,” he relents, and Baekhyun sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But you could’ve easily just… imprisoned him, or something. There’s no reason to treat him like a _guest_.”

Baekhyun thinks about the shape of Jongdae’s smile and the sound of his laughter, the way his eyes curve and his lips, too, the curiosity in his eyes and the firm line of his shoulders, refusing to break down in the face of all of this. He thinks about the softness in Kyungsoo’s living eye whenever Jongdae asks a question, the sly little smirk he sends whenever he’s about to kick Baekhyun’s ass in nine-three-one, and the way he looked out at the stars like they’re the most beautiful thing the entire universe has to offer.

“No,” Baekhyun says, quietly. “It wasn’t that easy.”

Sensing the shift in mood, Chanyeol’s eyebrows furrow together, but then Baekhyun is continuing to walk forward, ignoring the churning in his three stomachs over the matter. Luckily, Jongdae’s scent is strong enough here that he doesn’t need his predatory state to catch it, but still. It’s mingled in with _three_ scents now, and Baekhyun doesn’t like what that might mean.

Not in the slightest.

“This way,” Baekhyun motions, and slips back into the predatory state without even meaning to.

  
  
  
  


Sehun, Yerim, and Jongin, Jongdae quickly learns, are a _lot_ of fun.

They’d met up with Jongin outside the neon-lit, floating bar, who’d had an irritated look on his face and chastised Sehun and Yerim both for wandering off, who’d seemed indifferent to the scolding from the tall, pink person. Jongin had noticed Jongdae within a minute’s delay, and then had blinked down at him from behind three black eyes.

“Drovaryian,” Jongdae had blurted, and Yerim had mumbled, _what an astute observation_.

It is strange though, Jongdae thinks now, because Jongin doesn’t look like Kyungsoo, but does at the same time. His horns are long and branching, with that same silver ring around the base, his face and body still covered in _skin_ , but more than anything, he has three, thin, cat-like tails that branch out behind him, swaying lightly even as he sits.

And Kyungsoo, well. Kyungsoo doesn’t have those at all.

Either way, Sehun and Yerim had been happy to tell Jongin all about Jongdae’s No Good Very Bad Day and how he deserved a drink. (Then Yerim had whispered something into Jongin’s ears conspiratorially, who had sighed in place, and Jongdae had decided not to think about _that_.) Jongin had initially been a little on-guard, but when he’d evidently deemed Jongdae as not a threat, had relaxed slightly, far less reserved.

“Here,” Sehun says, and slams a tray on the table of six thin, metal… well, shot glasses. “You’re buying next round.” He points at Jongin accusingly, who gives a disinterested look in return.

“Sure, sure,” Jongin says, leaning forward. Yerim, Jongdae notes, doesn’t move for one of the shot glasses at all.

“I’m still underage,” Yerim explains, gesturing to metal wristband on her arm that Jongdae figures is meant to _mean_ something. “Basically just the designated driver.”

“Right,” Sehun snorts, beneath his breath, as Jongdae figures that that means the last glass is for him and the other three are just the second round, leaning slowly across the table and peering into the container curiously. It’s not liquid inside, which is striking, but a thick, curling, white fog. Jongdae stares at it, slightly entranced.

“You know how to drink mist, right?” Sehun says, leaning into Jongdae’s space as Yerim and Jongin bicker about something. Jongdae blinks up at him.

“Um.” He says. “Sure?”

Sehun gives him an amused but quizzical look, then says, “Tip it back and inhale through your nose.”

Jongdae does as he’s told, and isn’t until _after_ the fact that he realises that mist could be poisonous to his entire body and he might’ve just killed himself.

Then the sensation hits, and all that washes away as Jongdae exhales a breath that tastes kind of minty and says, “ _Woah_.”

“Yeah,” Sehun giggles. “It’s good stuff. Doesn’t last too long though.”

It’s kind of like alcohol in the way it makes Jongdae looser and lightheaded, more giggly, but it feels like he’s retained a lot more of his self-control than what alcohol tends to do. Plus, there’s the fact that Jongdae is a total heavyweight, so it’s nice to get intoxicated by something so quickly.

“Not to be rude, but what exactly _are_ you?” Yerim asks, as Jongdae blinks at her, startled and… drunk? High? “I’ve never seen anything like you before, and what sort of person doesn’t know how to drink mist?”

“Yerim,” Jongin says, chastising.

“No, it’s okay,” Jongdae reassures, smiling lopsidedly. “I’m called a human.” Or _Terran_ , his mind uselessly supplies. “We’re… not very heard of.”

“No kidding,” Yerim says, running her red eyes up and down Jongdae’s body. “You’re so… plain looking.”

Sehun sighs in embarrassment, but Jongdae just laughs. “Thanks,” he says wryly. “Where I’m from, you’d be considered incredibly weird-looking.”

“You don’t have snociels where you come from?” Yerim asks, tilting her head, and Jongdae shakes his own in answer. “Wow, you really must live far away…”

“Snociels are as common as they come,” Sehun says, peering at Jongdae curiously. “I’m surprised.”

Jongin snorts. “Yeah, I think the only place they don’t inhabit are like, the Red Isles. Kuhonia ‘n stuff.”

Kuhonia. Jongdae pauses. That’s where Baekhyun is from, isn’t he…?

Yerim scowls. “Who’d want to live with a bunch of cultist freaks anyway,” okay, now Jongdae is _very_ confused, but he makes sure to actually hide it, this time --at least semi-decently.

“No need to get so defensive,” Sehun teases slyly, and picks up the second shot glass of Mist, downing it in one swift movement before turning to Jongdae. “If you’re from so far away, how’d you end up here?”

“It’s a long story,” Jongdae answers, for as much as he weirdly _does_ trust Sehun and his friends to not hurt him or something, well… he’s still trying to make sense of all the facts himself, he doesn’t think he should go blurting them to strangers who offer to buy him drinks. “What about you guys? Do you live here or…?”

“We’re working,” Jongin answers, drawing patterns absentmindedly on the table with his fingertips. “Been following a trail for a while now, lead us here.”

“Except it went cold, so I forced these two idiots to take a break for once,” Yerim adds, elbowing Jongin with two of her arms.

“What are you? Detectives?” Jongdae asks amusedly, glancing back and forth between the trio curiously. He’s sure the _Union_ or whatever has some form of legal enforcement, but--

“Something like that,” Sehun answers with a twist to his lips, placing his palms flat on the table as he stands. “Who wants another round?”

Mist, Jongdae is quick to discover, wears off rather rapidly, but it doesn’t seem particularly expensive or hard to come by what with the way Sehun repeatedly buys more, each time threatening that Jongin must buy the next. Jongdae doesn’t understand much of what the three talk about --politics, media references, et cetera-- but he gets a little drawn into it all the same, intoxicating in its own way, separate to the mist. _This is my life now_ , Jongdae thinks, with startling clarity, and leans just that little bit closer to the table. This, everything they’re talking about, this is all Jongdae will ever know, and maybe… maybe it isn’t the end of the world entirely. (Even if the world, or, Jongdae’s world, at least, already ended 600 years ago.)

They’re all exceedingly nice, Jongdae thinks, the way they treat him and buy him drinks, the way Sehun checks in on him now and again and asks if he’s feeling any better. They respect Jongdae’s boundaries when he tries to change a topic, and they answer his questions without patronising him when he deems the topic is obscure enough for him to ask without revealing too much about how little he knows; in return he laughs at their jokes, joins Yerim in teasing Sehun when he feels confident enough too, and carefully listens to Jongin complain about family problems.

“We should finish up soonish,” Sehun says eventually, stretching out his arms --branches?-- before reaching into his waistband and pulling out a _gun_.

Of course, that’s what Jongdae _thinks_ it is, given by the L shape and the trigger and whatnot, but it’s kind of narrow and a metallic silver --either way he backs away from it a little bit, wide-eyed.

“Are you just going to murder me in broad daylight?” Jongdae nervously asks, as he looks around worriedly while Yerim just cackles at him.

“It’s not a _blaster_ ,” she answers. “Haven’t you ever had eternity before?”

“I think that question answers itself,” Sehun says cooly, looking at Jongdae from behind a head tilt. “You’ve never even heard of it, have you?”

Belatedly, Jongdae shakes his head, and Sehun picks up the gun, loading it with small, glowing-blue cartridges. “It’s just a drug,” he says, with such nonchalance it catches Jongdae off-guard because this isn’t earth --things like drugs are probably just legal out here, where everything is so big it would be too hard to keep track of it all anyway, and Jongdae should accept that fact. “A relaxant. Makes it easier to sleep after drinking, y’know?”

“Cools the mist and stops a hangover,” Yerim translates, which Jongdae laughs at while Sehun and Jongin make exasperated expressions in sync.

It’s strange to watch, as Sehun holds the gun against his head and fires it. It doesn’t make a loud noise --even if Jongdae had braced for such-- just a quiet click, bright blue veins of something branching across the side of his face before fading, sinking beneath the skin. It’s safe to say drugs here aren’t _anything_ like they had been on earth, if the foggy mist hadn’t been the first indication. Kyungsoo had used a similar device to put the UTC in Jongdae's neck, too, he belatedly realises.

“Ah,” Sehun says, evidently relaxed, far less reactive than how the Mist had made him. “Good stuff.”

“Better be,” Jongin mumbles, reaching for the gun with ease. “Pricey as shit.”

“That’s because Sooyoung drives a hard bargain,” Sehun laughs, and Jongdae watches with fascination as Jongin repeats the movement of the gun against the side of his head, much to the same result.

Jongin slides the device across the table, and Jongdae picks it up warily before something thick and blue wraps around his wrist, securing it in place.

“What the hell are you doing?” Baekhyun scowls, all-teeth, with a nervous looking Chanyeol behind him --or at least, Jongdae _thinks_ it’s Baekhyun, even if the colour of his hair has darkened to a deep blue, golden eyes replaced in favour of all-black sclera and irises both.

“Kuhonian…” Yerim mumbles, making frantic eye contact with Sehun.

“Whatever I want,” Jongdae replies childishly, pushing off Baekhyun’s tail with his free hand. “Why does it matter to you?”

Baekhyun hesitates at that, ears flattening against his head, and just like that, he reverts to normal, tails no longer raised, eyes golden and slitted, hair the colour of the sky. (Or, at least, the one that had been on earth.)

“Jongdae, I’m sorry, but can we please talk about this somewhere else--” he throws a hasty look sideways.

“I don’t see what the problem is here,” Sehun cuts in, vines along his shoulders writhing aggressively. “Clearly he doesn’t want to go with you, so maybe you should leave.”

“Sehun, it’s fine,” Jongdae reassures, because as much as he appreciates the protectiveness, it is extremely unnecessary, and he doesn’t want to draw anymore attention to them than what they already have, glancing around surreptitiously as the other patrons at the bar throw them wary looks. “I said I’d come back eventually,” Jongdae says, addressing Chanyeol, purposefully ignoring Baekhyun.

“Yet here you are, hanging out with strangers and taking crap like _eternity_.”

“And who are you to judge him, kitty?” Yerim scoffs, and Baekhyun’s hackles rise. “Pretty far from home for a Kuhonian, aren’t you?”

Baekhyun laughs, but it isn’t the square-grinned bubbly music Jongdae is used to, harsh and grating instead.

“Congratulations on befriending a bunch of Union _dogs_ ,” Baekhyun says, gesturing to the bracelet around Yerim’s wrist. “You really know how to pick ‘em, don’t you Jongdae?”

“Baekhyun…” Chanyeol says in warning as Sehun stands and stares him down, expressionless, but intimidating in his frigidity.

“Yeah, Baekhyun," Jongdae replies snidely. _"_ I guess I always do trust in the worst types of people, don’t I?”

“Jongdae” Baekhyun grits out, refusing to back down from Sehun’s challenge. “Can we please discuss this elsewhere?”

“No,” Jongdae says. “I don’t want to talk to you yet, I just want to enjoy myself.” The mist in combination with all the tension in the air is making Jongdae’s heart pound painfully, ears aching, skin on fire. “And I’m sick of you pretending like you own me.”

Baekhyun flinches at that, and in a fit of rebellion, Jongdae sits back down stubbornly and holds the eternity gun against his head, finger hovering over the trigger. He doesn’t think it will hurt, but still.

Baekhyun bristles. “Jongdae, _don’t_ , you don’t know what it might do to you--” Jongdae pulls the trigger, and the rest fades to black.


	4. Chapter 4

Simultaneously, Baekhyun and the Lanairan --Sehun, Jongdae had called him-- move towards Jongdae’s body as it suddenly stills before crumpling, completely slack.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun snaps immediately, and he quickly moves towards Jongdae, checking his face. Instead of the light blue threads of eternity that should spread across his forehead, Jongdae’s face is covered in black briefly, before it disappears.

“We need to get him back to the lab,” Chanyeol says, oddly decisive. “He’s reacting to the drug.”

“How is that possible?” The snociel questions, holding her arms weakly. "The union tests it they make sure it doesn't--"

“Does it matter?” Baekhyun counters, carefully cradling Jongdae in his arms bridal style. God, humans are so light. So squishy and delicate and Baekhyun has never been more careful in his life. “He needs treatment.”

“Then take him to a hospital,” the Drovaryian adds. “To a real doctor, he needs--”

“Yes let’s take the illegal extinct alien to a Union hellhole,” Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “What a great idea.”

A waitress comes up to ask if everything’s okay, but Sehun quickly dismisses her, rushing to Baekhyun’s side as he makes his way through the bar, hoping everyone thinks Jongdae is just drunk beyond himself, or something.

“Wait,” Sehun says, evidently confused as the Drovaryian and snociel stumble behind him, but Baekhyun keeps walking until there’s a stick-like hand curled around one of his tail and he  _growls_ , Chanyeol frowning worriedly a few steps ahead. “I can’t just let you take him--”

“Then come with me for fuck’s sake,” Baekhyun hisses, eager to keep moving and blinking as they stumble back out into the low light of dusk. “I don’t give a shit. If you want to play protector, then do it. But right now, Jongdae needs medical attention.”

There’s a moments of hesitation, before Sehun turns around, says, “Meet me back at the ship,” then faces Baekhyun and determinedly adds, “Lead the way.”

Baekhyun doesn’t need to be told twice.

  
  
  


By the time Chanyeol and Baekhyun actually make it back to Chanyeol’s place, they’re cradling an evidently unconscious Jongdae in their arms, and there’s a fucking Lanairan two steps behind them.

“What the hell happened?” Kyungsoo asks angrily, as Chanyeol unlocks the door by stepping towards it and they all rush inside, Baekhyun immediately placing Jongdae down on the medical cot. Kyungsoo had gotten here no thanks to the most awkward ride of his life with Minseok consisting of nothing but silence for a period or so, but by the time he had Chanyeol and Baekhyun were long gone, and he’d been forced to simply sit on the front step and _wait_. It was a terrible experience overall --Kyungsoo would not recommend it to anyone.

“Eternity,” Baekhyun explains, as Chanyeol immediately presses a heart monitor to Jongdae’s chest, then leans over him with an ear to his mouth, face scrunching in confusion. “Something about it reacted negatively, caused him to faint--”

“He hasn’t fainted,” Chanyeol answers immediately, leaning back. “He’s-- I think he’s dead?”

Baekhyun and Kyungsoo freeze in place.

“... What?” The Lanairan repeats. “What do you mean you _think_?”

“His heart isn’t beating,” Chanyeol continues, brow furrowed, pointing to the flatline on the holoscreen. “But he’s still breathing, faintly, I think it might be a Terran thing, but--”

Then, there’s a single beep.

“What are you talking about?” Baekhyun snaps. “His heart beat just then.”

“What?” Chanyeol asks, glaring at the lone spike that quickly disappears on screen, then, his eyes widen in realisation. “No that’s-- no it can’t be.”

“What, Chanyeol?” Kyungsoo snaps, and Chanyeol swallows, scrambling around.

“It must’ve slowed his heartbeat beyond the threshold and his metabolism too but-- so instantaneously that’s-- that doesn’t happen--”

“Well _clearly_ it did Yeol,” Baekhyun snaps. “So fix this.”

“I-- I can’t,” Chanyeol says, stunned in realisation. “I don’t know how Terrans work, or what treatment will hurt him in the long run.” Kyungsoo doesn’t know what a Terran is or why Jongdae is apparently it but, guessing by the way the Lanairan’s eye sockets widen, it’s probably significant. “The only thing we can do is hope his body works itself out of it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Kyungsoo says, as there’s another beat on screen. “His body could shut down and _die_.”

“Well I can’t exactly tell his entire body to wake up now can I?” Chanyeol scoffs. “You’re forgetting I have no medical knowledge of his species at all, Kyungsoo. He’s alive, and that’s all that matters.”

Chanyeol is right, as much as Kyungsoo hates to think it, any sort of drastic medical treatment could put Jongdae’s life in danger, the safest thing they could do was hope for the best, and only deliver treatment if it got too bad.

“Surely his heart is in critical condition,” the Lanairan adds, unblinking in worry as he stares back and forth between Jongdae’s lying body and Chanyeol in mild confusion.

Chanyeol shakes his head, tapping his fingers against his thighs incessantly. There’s another beep.

“His heartbeat is already increasing,” he notes. “Any sort of shock to the system could disrupt his body’s function entirely and jolt it too quickly. If it drops any lower, I _can_ artificially induce a faster heartbeat, but who knows what damage that might inflict...”

Another beep, and another, closer together.

“Look,” Chanyeol says, almost a little giddy. “He’s already snapping out of it. His body is coming back on its own. This one’s a fighter.”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun exhales, slumping in relief. “He really is.”

Chanyeol suggests they clear out to give him some space to make sure everything's running properly, but the Lanairan makes no move to leave, causing Kyungsoo to send a questioning glance.

“Sehun,” Baekhyun explains with a hand wave, as they step outside Chanyeol’s building for some fresh air. The suns have already set, and now the two moons hang high in the sky. “Some Union dog Jongdae met, I dunno.”

Kyungsoo tenses. “And you thought you should bring a dog _here_?”

“What else could I do?” Baekhyun snaps. “He wouldn’t leave Jongdae alone and Jongdae needed medical attention which apparently he doesn’t even actually fucking need!” Realising his outburst judging by the look on Kyungsoo’s face, no doubt, Baekhyun’s ears flatten against the top of his head and he sighs. “Sorry, but Jongdae was more of a priority.”

Still, able to rest easier knowing Jongdae would be okay, and sorting out his thoughts, Kyungsoo feels himself be a little on edge thinking about the fact that ten steps away was their one-way trip to _Alcazar_ , the Union’s high-security, high-profile prison ship. Baekhyun quietly begins relaying everything Chanyeol had told him, and Kyungsoo panics at the surge of information, forcing himself to hide it so Baekhyun won’t empathically react.

Jongdae is the last of his kind. Jongdae doesn’t _have_ a home to send him back to.

“Kyungsoo?” Baekhyun asks quietly, once he’s done, leaning into Kyungsoo’s side, who’s desperately trying to keep calm. He can’t feel Baekhyun’s warmth since metal prosthetics have yet to break through that medical barrier but, if he tries hard enough, he can imagine it. “What are we going to do?”

Kyungsoo can’t feel Baekhyun’s warmth, but he can feel the pressure he gives as he presses his head against Kyungsoo’s shoulder, ears tickling the parts of his neck that are still made of flesh. Thinking about everything that had happened with Lu Han, what Chanyeol had discovered about Jongdae, the fact that their buyer was _not_ going to let them out of this cleanly, and the fact that a dog was only a doorway away... Kyungsoo had no fucking clue.

“I don’t know,” he admits honestly, as he feels Baekhyun’s tail swish behind him anxiously in worry. Gently, since Kyungsoo’s own strength is so hard to gauge, he scratches behind Baekhyun’s ears comfortingly, smiling at the way he softly purrs. In any other situation, Baekhyun would have bat his hand away and gotten all defensive about it, but it’s in his moments of weakness that Kyungsoo knows he likes the gesture best. Already Kyungsoo’s head is running through the options, because it’s not like they can just cart around Jongdae forever, but he’s in danger too. If he doesn’t have a home planet to go back to, then he’ll need an identity, and somewhere to hide, and… and Kyungsoo might actually know how to accomplish all that; at a price, of course. “But we’ll work it out.”

Hopefully, at least. But Kyungsoo didn’t need to say that.

  


 

 

(It’s late, and dark, and Jongdae can’t see shit, but there’s someone cradling him in their arms, and he blinks blearily to try and make sense of it, mind too drugged on pain and sleeping medication to properly register what’s happening.

“Jongdeok…?” He tries, because he can see it now; the long eyelashes, the sharp cheekbones, nearly a carbon copy of Jongdae himself, if not a little more successful in the gene pool, but the image is weirdly wrong too. This isn’t the hospital, Jongdae thinks, this isn’t even _home_.

“Jongdae, be quiet,” Jongdeok orders, low but firm, and Jongdae’s high as _fuck_ but he still snaps his mouth shut obediently, wondering what’s going on vaguely in the back of his mind. Instead of worrying about that though, he just closes his eyes again, briefly.

By the time he opens them again, it’s light, and Jongdae blinks blearily, his head far clearer than it had been hours --days? Weeks? Who even knows-- prior. They’re in Jongdeok’s lab, Jongdae vaguely registers, and his brother is frantically moving from bench-to-bench as Jongdae pulls his legs over the side of the cot and winces.

“Careful,” Jongdeok chastises immediately, pushing Jongdae back down, but there’s something wrong with the image. His hands keep changing size, and his face is blurry, like TV static. Jongdae _knows_ what his brother looks like --or, at least, knows he _should_ \-- but the actual image itself is wrong.

“This is just a dream,” Jongdae says, in realisation.)

 

 

 

 

 

Then, he wakes up.

This time, it’s not with a strangled gasp or a wad of blood stuck in his throat; Jongdae slowly blinks up to halogen lighting, and makes sense of his surroundings vaguely, startled when he finds Sehun staring at him unblinkingly.

“You’re awake,” he blurts, immediately, as Jongdae scrunches his eyebrows together in confusion and Sehun turns around. “He’s awake!” He yells, causing the rush of bay doors to open as Chanyeol stumbles in from the rest of the house, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo from outside.

Kyungsoo opens his mouth to say something, but when he meets Jongdae’s eyes, who’s staring at him with a pained expression, it snaps shut.

“How are you feeling?” Chanyeol asks immediately, uncharacteristically gentle.

“Like I got hit by a truck,” Jongdae replies, before realising that no one in the room even knows what a truck is, wincing as he sits up straight and Chanyeol pushes him down again. It gives him a very odd sense of deja vu. Jongdae holds his head with his palm. “What the hell happened to me?”

“The eternity reacted negatively with your body’s chemistry,” Chanyeol explains, as Sehun takes on a particularly guilty look. “Something in your bloodstream-- it caused your body to shut down momentarily, rather than relax in the normal way, but you’re awake now.” An awkward pause of silence. “In case you.. Hadn’t realised that.”

It makes Jongdae huff reluctantly despite everything, which only makes his head hurt in the long run. Groaning, he squeezes his eyes shut, waiting until the thudding dies down, only to open them again to a worried Chanyeol and Sehun, and a guilty Baekhyun and Kyungsoo --the latter, Jongdae distantly notes, is oddly satisfying, despite everything.

“I’m fine,” he reassures. “Just tired…” He looks at Sehun with a confused glance, the rest of his thoughts catching up to him. “What are you doing here?”

Sehun looks sheepish, caught off-guard.

“I didn’t know if it would be safe for you…” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck as Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “I was worried.”

Touched by so much concern, Jongdae smiles.

“It’s okay Sehun, but thank you for looking out for me,” it occurs to Jongdae that Sehun is probably a very, very good person. Or, uh, tree. Tree-person? “But it’s okay. You don’t have to waste time here.”

“I’m not wasting time,” Sehun quickly responds, almost indignant. “Besides--” he falters, frowning slightly, glancing back at Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, before facing Jongdae again. “I’m curious. Are you really Terran?”

“Apparently,” Jongdae answers, mumbling, not the slightest bit bitter. Not at all.

“Wow…” Sehun says, in slight awe. “You… really weren’t kidding about everything you’ve ever known being dead, huh?”

Despite everything, Jongdae smiles.

“No,” he says, sitting up even as Chanyeol wordlessly pokes and prods at his body. “I really wasn’t.”

“Huh…” Sehun voices, obviously at a lack of what to say. His vines curl around him anxiously. “How are you… alive, then?”

“That, we’re still working out,” Chanyeol answers for him, smiling lopsidedly, as Jongdae’s stomach churns at the thought, because he’s pretty sure he has an idea, now, no thanks to his overactive subconscious. “It’s complicated.”

Sehun exhales, fidgeting with one of the stems growing out of his forearm.

“I’m-- amazed, really,” he admits, looking down at Jongdae. “Your people are like, poster children back at the Capital, to prevent pollution. _Don’t litter or you’ll end up like the Terrans_ , that sort of thing.”

“That really makes me feel better about myself and my dead culture,” Jongdae replies wryly. “Thanks.”

“That’s not--” Sehun swallows, obviously embarrassed, but Jongdae can only offer him a weak little half-smile. In the scheme of things, he’s not too surprised humans caused their own mass extinction because _really_ , they had it coming. Sehun’s vines wilt pathetically. “Sorry, I’m. Very tired…” he trails off, swallowing. “Jongin and Yerim are going to be worried about me, I should get going…”

Jongdae waves him off. “It’s fine. I’m fine. You should go. Thank you, though.”

Sehun seems startled by Jongdae’s earnesty, then shakes his head. “I mean, it’s kinda my fault your body entered a death trance, so--” Jongdae laughs, and Sehun smiles, reassured. He fumbles around in his back pocket, and pulls out a slim, holo card, flickering in the air. “My number.” He explains, as Jongdae takes the card warily, confused at the strange markings on the surface. They make no sense to him, just like all the lettering around here doesn’t. “Just… just in case.” Another surreptitious look backwards at Kyungsoo and Baekhyun, the latter pulling a childish face at Sehun’s back, and then a firm hand on Jongdae’s shoulder, a reassuring squeeze. Jongdae doesn’t have the heart to explain that he doesn’t have a comm or know how to work one, his fist closes around the card regardless.

“Thank you,” Jongdae tells him, one last time, as Baekhyun easily steps forward with a smile.

“Come on Sehun,” he adds, with a predatory grin. “I’ll walk you out.”

The bay doors whoosh shut behind them, and Jongdae is left staring at Kyungsoo, who meets his gaze across the room, face unreadable no thanks to the layers of metal and cybernetic eyes. Swallowing, Kyungsoo gives Chanyeol in the corner of the living room a pointed look, who smiles and says, “Pretend I’m not even here!”

“Easier said than done you oaf,” Kyungsoo mumbles indignantly, and steps a little closer to Jongdae’s cot, who refuses to tear his eyes away, avoiding the piles of metal and junk that surround the place. A thick, heavy silence settles in the air. “Baekhyun told me what Chanyeol discovered.”

Jongdae’s eyes finally fall, remorseful, remembering everything himself, too.

“Yeah,” Jongdae manages, weakly. “Surprise.”

“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo says, softly, and Jongdae doesn’t know if that’s a sympathetic response to the fact that Jongdae is the last human alive or an _actual_ apology for all the accompanying bullshit surrounding that had, in hindsight, kind of been his fault. Another thick beat of silence passes between them.

“Chanyeol also told me what you and Baekhyun are,” Jongdae says, and the wince that flashes across Kyungsoo’s face tells him everything. “It’s true, then.” Jongdae adds, but it’s not a question. “You stole me.”

“Not--” Kyungsoo tries, stops. “--Not on purpose.”

The front door slides open as a satisfied Baekhyun comes walking back in, dusting his hands. Seeing the serious expressions on Kyungsoo and Jongdae’s faces both, his tails droop, tucking between his legs.

“Oh,” he says, lamely, and clears his throat. “Talking time, huh?”

“I want the truth,” Jongdae declares cleanly. “Right from the start.” He sits up a little straighter, clenches his jaw. “No more lies.”

“It’s… complicated,” Kyungsoo says, refusing to meet Jongdae’s eyes. Jongdae frowns at him.

“We mostly just steal artifacts, weapons, that sort of thing. Black market stuff,” Baekhyun begins explaining, ignoring the guilty look that passes clearly over Kyungsoo’s visage. “And one cycle, we were hired to steal you.”

He says it so simply, the barest of facts, that somehow, such bluntness makes it easier to swallow, the words no longer covered in or shaped by mistruth.

“We didn’t _know_ it was you,” Kyungsoo corrects, biting his cheek --the one that’s actually still flesh, naturally. “We never realised that what we stole was alive, let alone sentient, until we accidentally woke you up.”

Jongdae mulls this over, as Baekhyun fidgets in front of him, waiting for the silence to break. Kyungsoo, however, is simply characteristically still.

“Then what?” He asks eventually, as Baekhyun blinks at him dumbly. “If someone wanted to buy me, then you were going to sell me, right?”

Baekhyun looks away guiltily, and Kyungsoo says, “We considered it, yes.” Jongdae tenses at that, the monitor beside them increasing in beeping as his heart rate picks up in his chest. “But we don’t. Do that. Live trade, slave trade --whatever the hell our buyer wanted to do with you-- we don’t… do that. We never have.” Kyungsoo shifts guiltily. “There was a lot of money on the line so we thought we could but--” he shakes his head. “We won’t. We _can’t_. You realise that, right, Jongdae? We never could have. Regardless of the reason.”

But they nearly did, Jongdae thinks. “Taking me home…” he starts, even though it doesn’t matter now, because Earth is gone. “That was a lie, wasn’t it? To keep me complacent. You were never going to follow through with that, even if Earth was still alive.”

“We didn’t know _what_ we were going to do with you,” Kyungsoo replies, irritation lacing through the guilt. “We’d just found some foreign alien in place of an artifact on a ten million credit job, we didn’t know if you were dangerous or harmful or--”

“Soo,” Baekhyun cuts in, and Kyungsoo immediately stills, exhausted as he rubs at his temple.

“You could’ve asked,” Jongdae offers meekly, staring at the palms of his hands. Then again, it’s not like Jongdae quite knows himself, does he? His own memories are still layered in a thick haze, even if it’s peeling back piece by piece with each passing day -- _cycle._  He knows how he got here… kind of --or at least, he _thinks_ he does-- but that’s not to say he knows every nitty gritty detail, or why it is Jongdeok did what he did, let alone _how._

That sort of science… it didn’t-- It _couldn’t--_

“Why?” Jongdae asks eventually, as the silence weighs over them. Something clutters to the ground, and Chanyeol gives a sheepish smile. “Why not go through with it?”

Because that’s what’s bothering him, above all else; why did they hesitate? They’re thieves, aren’t they? So why the sudden moral code? Jongdae isn’t sure how to feel about Baekhyun and Kyungsoo --they _did_ think about selling him, so that doesn’t feel great, but they also thought better of it, so maybe that’s redeemable. Regardless of all that, they’ve been taking care of him thus far, giving him clothes, food, shelter. Jongdae could’ve woken up to much, much worse.

Even if they are criminals... it’s not so black and white, Jongdae’s realising, and it makes his gut churn with self-conflict.

"Because we're not smugglers," Baekhyun says, as Kyungsoo glances at him, briefly, biting on his lips before adding, “And because I’ve been where you are.”

Jongdae tilts his head at that, because Kuhonia is very much alive, he’s pretty sure--

“Or uh, were,” Baekhyun corrects, as Kyungsoo’s metal hand rests on the back of his neck reassuringly and Jongdae’s eyes zero in on the movement before he can stop himself, swallowing. “Kind of. When I left Kuhonia, me and my friends got abducted by slave traders.” Baekhyun says the information so _casually_ , even as Jongdae’s eyes widen in realisation. “Luckily I escaped and eventually met Kyungsoo, but…” he shudders, so imperceptible Jongdae nearly misses the movement, but it’s a fracture in Baekhyun’s otherwise strong demeanour that makes him wonder just what he’d gone through. At the same time, however, Jongdae doesn’t think he wants to know. “So yeah. Kind of have a thing against people being treated as livestock, I guess.”

“There’s also this,” Kyungsoo asks, and points to the metal band around the base of his broken horn, which Jongdae had always thought was just some weird piece of jewelry but, apparently not. “It’s called a bond. It signifies a debt towards someone.”

“So, in a way,” Jongdae tries. “You… belong to someone.” Solemnly, Kyungsoo nods.

“It’s complicated,” he explains, and Jongdae almost thinks to retort with _isn’t everything with you?_ “Lu Han saved my life, so now I owe him… a very large sum of money.”

“Well, technically _I_ saved your life--” Chanyeol adds, from the corner of the room, completely unconvincing in his little _I’m totally not listening_ charade. Kyungsoo gives him a flat look. “Nevermind. Carry on.”

“A few bands ago, I got into a shuttle crash,” Kyungsoo elaborates, crossing his arms against his chest. “I couldn’t pay the money saving me required--” he gestures briefly to the metal half of his face. “So Lu Han gave me a bond.”

“And you’ve been stealing ever since?” Jongdae offers, and Kyungsoo snorts.

“Oh no,” he says, smiling wryly. “I’ve been working within the black market for a very long time.” Jongdae wants to prod further, but Kyungsoo cuts him off before he can think of what to say. “The only difference between now and before is that I do it for Lu Han on a permanent basis now, rather than occasionally.”

“And all the sick robot upgrades,” Baekhyun offers, which Kyungsoo glares at him for and Jongdae laughs before he can stop himself, quietly, into the back of his hand. It’s not to say he feels even a fraction of the comfort he had with Baekhyun and Kyungsoo before… everything, but he doesn’t feel quite on edge as he first had when he’d woken up, either. Jongdae knows he’s naive, knows he trusts too easily, it’s always been a flaw of his ever since he was young, but he really, truly feels like he can, despite everything, trust Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, trust what they’re saying, trust _them_. It’s stupid, and it doesn’t make sense, and Jongdae hates himself for it, his lack of self-preservation; but he trusts them all the same. He does, to some degree, understand why they hid from him what they did.

Besides, he’s hiding things from them too.

“...So what now?” Jongdae asks, when neither of them say anything, Baekhyun fidgeting in the silence. “You won’t sell me but… what instead? It’s not like you can keep me around, right?”

Not that Jongdae would want to be kept around anyway, in hindsight, because he’s a lot of things, sick, dying, meant-to-be-extinct, but a criminal is not one of them. Jongdae can’t exactly see himself wearing masks and wielding guns and navigating an entire galactic culture he doesn’t even know the basics of.

Baekhyun looks to Kyungsoo to answer, and the latter says, “There’s a friend of mine,” when Baekhyun raises an eyebrow, Kyungsoo corrects it to, “an acquaintance. I stole tech for her a few bands ago. She can help you get an ID as a citizen of the Union, get you a job in a safer quarter of the galaxy.” He bites his cheek. “But it… won’t come cheap.”

“I think we kind of owe it to Jongdae anyway,” Baekhyun adds sheepishly, with a little shrug. “It’s our fault he’s here after all. It’s the least we can do.”

Jongdae wants to argue that; should, in hindsight, but something holds him back.

“Lu Han won’t be happy…” Kyungsoo winces.

“Lu Han’s _never_ happy, fuck him.” Baekhyun smiles with all teeth. “In fact, he can happily _dra’kesh_.” Baekhyun makes a strange flicking gesture with his fingers upon his forehead, and Kyungsoo smiles wryly, indescribably fond.

“Your pronunciation is terrible,” he chastises, pinching Baekhyun’s ear, who yelps slightly in response, before turning to Jongdae, who’s just a little lost. “But do you think that will work for you? Joohyun should teach you enough to get by in the galaxy, and we can always visit you and comm-call and--”

“Kyungsoo,” Jongdae interrupts. “It’s fine. It sounds like… the only option, really.”

Either that or take the third seat upon the Moonlight. (At the same time though, there’s only two beds.) Jongdae isn’t built to be a criminal, though.

It’s kind of strange, really, that this is just. Jongdae’s life now. He doesn’t _have_ any options other than assimilate into the society of the Union and just… live out a normal life, as far as Union citizen standards go.

Except Jongdae will never live a normal life, because he’s the last of his species, and he holds the weight of his past on his back, never truly belonging to this time period or this culture. It is, with suddenness, a very freezing thought, causing ice to creep through Jongdae’s veins in a way that’s far too familiar for comfort.

There’s also the fact that he probably doesn’t have much more than a year before blackblood kills him, but Chanyeol had promised him a cure, so maybe he really will just find some way to pretend that this is all okay. Even if he’ll live with a ten million credit --however much money _that_ is; Jongdae assumes he’ll eventually learn-- price tag over his head.

And that thought isn’t comforting. Not in the slightest.


	5. Chapter 5

It takes a few cycles before Chanyeol says Jongdae is stable enough to actually leave, and those same few cycles are the worst days --or uh, half days, really-- of Jongdae’s life. Mostly because they’re stuck in boredom in a semi-hospital as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo do their best to entertain Jongdae, but there’s only so much nine-three-one he can play before he’s sick of it, and it’s not like any of the holo-TV stuff is entertaining, because Jongdae just ends up asking about all the different alien species and it irks Kyungsoo to hell and back to try and watch something with two noisy people plus Chanyeol --who is, in hindsight, also noisy-- rummaging around in the background doing… whatever it is he does.

Which means Kyungsoo ends up storming out of the room, Baekhyun attempting to comfort him by following, and Jongdae alone and trapped in Chanyeol’s living-room-slash-med-bay, as bored as ever, and sick of being caged inside.

It is, at the very least, good reprieve time to clear the air, as Jongdae is able to make sense of all his mixed thoughts and feelings. While it takes a little while for him to truly forgive Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, he manages to do it under the pretence of them being his friends, who have shown him so much kindness and patience that he couldn’t even keep being mad (it helped that they both grovelled, a little, too). Baekhyun would give him a cute pout or Kyungsoo would send a hesitant smile and instantly Jongdae’s heart would be picking up in pace even as his anger cooled down, and he wasn’t quite sure what it meant.

Jongdae also spends the free time questioning Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, and Chanyeol, occasionally --when they’re not so irritable-- about all the little details he’s missing. Like what Chanyeol is, (a doctor, Baekhyun had responded, but outside of the law, so to speak, bonded to Lu Han just like Kyungsoo in a manner Baekhyun doesn’t know) what _dra’kesh_ had meant (go fuck themselves, more or less) and what Baekhyun had meant when he’d called Sehun and the others _dogs_.

“Uh,” Baekhyun says, ears twitching. “It’s-- slang for people bonded to the Union.” He shrugs stiffly, refusing to meet Jongdae’s eyes and focusing on the holo-screen in front of them instead. “Soldiers and ex-cons who offer out their services in return for higher pay. Y’know, like, bounty hunters and stuff.” He shoves another handful of the strange, slimy snack Jongdae had refused to even try into his mouth. “Could tell by the snociel’s bracelet, keeps ‘em in line and out of trouble, y’know. The Drovaryian had one around his horn, too.”

“Oh,” Jongdae says, in realisation, and pulls a face when he thinks about all the little niche details he’s going to have to learn just to fit in with… well, everything, properly. There’s so much he doesn’t know… Did Sehun have one of those bands, too?

Baekhyun seems relieved to be able to tune back into the TV show --yet another comedy Jongdae doesn’t get half the jokes of-- but Jongdae isn’t letting him off so easily.

“Yerim called Kuhonia…” he trails off, furrowing his brow in memory. Funnily enough, Jongdae’s memory had been kind of faulty, as of late. “...The… Red… something?”

Baekhyun’s face steels at that, and he quickly presses a button on his comm to make the screen disappear entirely, staring at the floor with his mouth twisted. It hadn’t taken long for Jongdae to learn that that often meant Baekhyun is thinking.

“The Red Isles,” Baekhyun answers for him, tails flicking anxiously behind him even as he sits cross-legged on the floor. “It’s a string of solar systems where the planets involved refuse to be a part of the Union. Kuhonia is one of them.”

“Not a part of the Union?” Jongdae parrots. “What does that mean?” The Union, as the name suggested, Jongdae had learnt, was the governing body over the entire milky way --of course, they didn’t call it the Milky Way, but _Unity_ instead; Jongdae digresses-- with the man-made Capital at the centre, keeping unified law across the galaxy and regulations between intragalactic travel. Each planet had its own rules, of course, but it was rare that they differed too greatly from the rest of the galaxy, in the same way English people would drive on the left, and people in Korea on the right, but Jongdae knew not to fucking murder anyone in either country, because he wouldn’t get away with it, but at an evidently much, much larger scale.

Baekhyun shrugs stiffly. “If the planet has a society that’s deemed as civilised ‘enough’,” he punctuates the last word with a bitter eye-roll. “Then the Union extends an offer for them to join.” His tails curl and uncurl in irritation. “It’s rare that they actually _let_ anyone decline since they’re imperialist bastards and the greatest military force in the galaxy but hey, no hard feelings.” It sounds like Baekhyun has a lot of hard feelings, but Jongdae’s not dumb enough to point that out. “The Red Isles are out of the way and worthless enough that the Union can’t be fucked wasting resources trying to 'civilise them', so I guess they remain isolated in defiance, stuck in a cold war of sorts... the Union will crack eventually, it's just a matter of when.”

“Isolated?” Jongdae repeats, and Baekhyun nods solemnly, still not meeting Jongdae’s eyes.

“Yeah…” he replies, mulling over his words. “Because they can’t really… be a part of the galaxy, Kuhonia and the rest of the Isles are sort of forced into isolation?” As Jongdae’s eyebrows furrow together, still confused, Baekhyun continues. “There’s hardly any travel outside of the planet, technology and medicine are primitive, resources are low, et cetera et cetera.” He shrugs stiffly. “There’s no… cultural mixing, or anything? Everything in Kuhonia is the exact same, and it sucks.”

“So you left,” Jongdae notes, trying to gauge Baekhyun’s reaction even as he so readily hides it.

“So I left.” Baekhyun agrees, tails sweeping the floor in a way that’s kind of cute. “There were smugglers that would dock at the planet every now and again, to get citizens out and sometimes trade too. Kuhonia stuff is rare to come by, so…” Baekhyun trails off, shaking his head. “It took me _bands_ to save up enough to get out, and by the time we reached a planet out of the isles they told us we hadn’t paid enough, and tried to trick us into getting a bond so we could be sold into slavery. Charming, right?”

“Baekhyun…” Jongdae reaches out, placing a hand on his shoulder. Baekhyun relaxes beneath the touch.

“I watched the friends I’d escaped with get sold as Kuhonian _kitties_ ,” he says the last word with so much bitterness Jongdae nearly flinches back. “While I escaped and tried to get by. One time, I tried to mug Kyungsoo, you see--” he laughs at the memory, in a twisted way. “--Because I was cold and hungry and alone and he was... well, he didn’t have all his prosthetics back then, so he was an easier target.” Baekhyun’s eyes turn fond. “He just told me I could steal better than off of him, and offered me a job. I’ve worked with him ever since.”

 _With_ , not _for_ \--Jongdae senses there’s far more to the story than what Baekhyun’s letting on, but he doesn’t push. They’re evidently not pleasant memories to dig up, given by the way Baekhyun’s curled in on himself, and without even thinking about it, Jongdae slides down off the cot onto the floor, and hugs Baekhyun.

Immediately he tenses, which has Jongdae frowning, before Baekhyun says, “What are you doing?”

Jongdae, keeping his arms around Baekhyun, blinks up at him lamely.

“Hugging you?” He offers, and Baekhyun just gives him a confused look. “Oh my god,” Jongdae says, pulling back. “You guys smile, and roll your eyes, and have _sex_ , but you don’t _hug_?”

“No…?” Baekhyun returns, and Jongdae huffs before leaning in again, enveloping Baekhyun. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s meant to be _comforting_ , Baekhyun. It’s a friendly gesture.”

“Oh,” he says, and Jongdae feels the way his muscles shift beneath him, relaxing, as Jongdae rests his forehead in the crook of Baekhyun’s neck and squeezes. “I guess it’s not too bad, then.”

They remain like that in silence, Baekhyun’s tails stilling as Jongdae’s presence relaxes him slightly. As the front door whooshes open, however, they break away, watching as a very disgruntled Kyungsoo and an unhappy Chanyeol walk through the doors, the latter’s arms filled with paper bags of strange shaped objects poking out of which Jongdae can’t discern.

“Done with your errands?” Jongdae asks, flatly, because when Kyungsoo had said _errands_ , Jongdae had belatedly realised that that meant he was going to go steal something for Chanyeol, although he didn’t ask for details past that. Just the thought that Kyungsoo was out there breaking the law had been enough stress for Jongdae --whether the Union’s regulations are garbage or not, he’s still very much a goody-two-shoes. It’s a distressingly difficult mindset to break.

“Yep!” Chanyeol replies cheerily, grinning even as Kyungsoo sighs in exasperation. “You should be all set to leave by the next night.”

Morning and night don’t quite work on Aelia like they work on Earth, Jongdae had quickly learnt. The smaller planet meant daylight only existed for less than half of a cycle; nighttime was much the same.

“Oh thank the gods,” Kyungsoo sighs, slumping forwards onto Jongdae’s bed. Jongdae raises an eyebrow.

“Stealing is hard work, huh?” He teases nervously, and Kyungsoo prods him in the shoulder with the tip of his boot, causing Jongdae to laugh even as he lurches forward because Kyungsoo’s foot is solid metal and _ow_. Jokes are the best way to not think about the consequence of otherwise serious topics, Jongdae has learnt.

“Shoplifting is beneath me,” Kyungsoo mumbles, pushing himself up on his palms.

“Which is exactly why I make you do it!” Chanyeol cheerily replies, grinning from ear-to-ear.

“You could just _buy_ things, you realise,” Kyungsoo replies, narrowing his eyes.

“But then how else would I make you pay rent?” Chanyeol tilts his head, and Kyungsoo sighs, causing Baekhyun to laugh as Jongdae grins at the exchange, hiding the cough it induces in the palm of his hand and wiping the blackened blood on the top of his thigh. “Shouldn’t you go and get your ship ready?” Chanyeol suggests saccharinely, turning to Jongdae. “Can we talk for a sec?”

Jongdae’s curious at that, but obliges, following Chanyeol past his kitchen and into his office which, in hindsight, Jongdae has never been in before, having been relegated to the living-room-slash-med-bay and nowhere else, thanks to Chanyeol’s weirdness about his house or workshop or whatever.

It’s about as messy and indiscernible as the rest of the place, though, as Chanyeol flicks away the holo-screens that bother him as he walks through, but pulls one towards them.

It looks like a molecule of some sort --not that Jongdae knows even a lick about science.

“Um?” He says, because Chanyeol is just looking at him, waiting.

“This was in your bloodstream,” he blurts, as the hologram of the molecule spins slowly.

“O...kay?” Jongdae tries. “What is it? What does it do?”

“It’s what reacted with eternity to shut your body down,” he says. “At first I thought it was a Terran thing but… the concentration of it in your blood never changes. _Never_. If it’s a natural product, then it would filtrate, but it just… stays there, your body doesn’t even register it.”

Again, not a science guy. “So what? This… isn’t meant to be there?”

Chanyeol shakes his head. “It doesn’t seem like an organic compound either, the folding of the protein and the elements in it they’re… synthetic, like a crude imitation of an organic molecule.” He flicks the display away, and frowns. “I just, thought you should know I… I think it’s probably the key reason why your body reacted the way it did, and how it could _withstand_ to react the way it did, and… and probably how you managed to stop aging for 2000 bands.”

Jongdae sharply inhales.

“I made Kyungsoo show me the pod you came out of,” Chanyeol continues. “And I think it’s pretty safe to assume that the gel-like substance somehow reacted with this molecule to keep your body in an indefinite stasis… cryogenics, if you will.” His antennae flick, and Chanyeol laughs nervously. “I guess there’s a similar composition in eternity, but that sort of science doesn’t… I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I’m not sure I even fully understand it myself, really.”

Silence settles between them, and Jongdae says, “Why are you telling me this?” It’s not like it makes a difference in the long run, right? Because Jongdae is already here, knows what Jongdeok had done to him. The _how_ doesn’t matter, in the scheme of things.

Chanyeol just shrugs. “I thought it might help fill out the missing pieces in your puzzle,” he fidgets almost nervously. “And give you a reason to stay away from eternity.” He smiles weakly at that, and awkwardly, Jongdae returns it. Reaching into his back pocket, Chanyeol holds out a small plastic tube. “But it’s not the main reason I needed to talk to you.”

Warily, Jongdae accepts the small vial. “What is it?”

“Your cure,” Chanyeol answers, and Jongdae’s eyes widen. “Take a pill of those nanobots every three cycles for six rotations and that should clear the virus out of your system entirely. Miss a cycle and you might have symptom problems, so my suggestion is that you _don’t_.” Jongdae’s fist curls around the tiny vial. “Whether you tell Baekhyun and Kyungsoo is up to you.”

“They don’t need to know,” Jongdae mumbles immediately, knowing that the added stress and worry; they don’t need that. Before it had merely been about protecting himself, making sure that the illness wouldn’t cause Baekhyun and Kyungsoo to abandon him or something equally as foolish --looking back on it, anyway-- but now he knows better than that, and he doesn’t need them to fret over useless things.

If Jongdae is truly going to live a normal life to the best of his ability, then he needs to make sure he doesn’t leave them any more fretful than they already are, and that he himself doesn’t get too attached to Baekhyun and Kyungsoo.

Which is a stupid thing to worry about, Jongdae realises; because he already fucking has.

  


 

 

 

It takes a few periods before Kyungsoo and Jongdae are ready to go --and Chanyeol is ready for them to leave-- meaning Baekhyun gets stuck aboard the Moonlight making sure she’s all set for the journey ahead of her. His head is still filled with tenacious memories of what it had been like before Kyungsoo, the darkness and the pain and all the hatred, swirling and bitter as it wells in his chest. It’s like a pot that’s left to simmer, Baekhyun’s past, and sometimes it boils over.

But they sour his arguable good mood and his cycle as a whole, so Baekhyun represses them back into the little pot. He remembers the way Kyungsoo had explained to Lu Han that he needed a second ever since the accident, and that there was something in Baekhyun’s eyes that made him a fighter, always defying his fate. Kyungsoo had always had a weak spot for strays.

Again, bad thoughts. Baekhyun shoves them away as he fiddles with an app on his comm and thinks about the way he’d threatened Sehun. That had been fun, shoving him against the door and telling him that if he _ever_ told anyone about Jongdae, Baekhyun would hunt him down and kill him. His fear had smelt pretty tantalising despite being like, 85% sap, and it was all in all fun for Baekhyun and his predatory instincts --even though he does fight them, most of the time, it can be enjoyable to slip back in every now and again.

By the time they finally, _finally_ leave Aelia --with a totally heartfelt goodbye from Chanyeol ( _not_ ) -- there’s an uneasy feeling in Baekhyun’s gut that he chooses to ignore, realising he’s back at square one when an itch settles over his skin.

“I’m bored,” he announces to the rest of the cockpit, as Jongdae laughs quietly and Kyungsoo doesn’t even look away from the windshield.

“We’ve been in space for less than ten nano-periods,” he says flatly, unimpressed. “At least pretend to make yourself useful.”

Baekhyun sticks his tongue out. “Fine. C’mon Jongdae.”

Jongdae points at himself. “Me?” He asks, and the sheer bewilderment on his face is kind of adorable. “What for?”

“We’re going to make ourselves useful so Kyungsoo can be Mr. Grumpy Pilot alone in peace.”

Luckily, Jongdae’s curiosity gets the best of him, and he does follow Baekhyun below deck, where he tells Jongdae to sort through the stock and keep listings of it, which proves to be a problem when Jongdae says, “UTC, remember? I can’t read, Baekhyun.”

“Oh.” Baekhyun says, lamely, because he really hadn’t thought that far ahead. Jongdae looks at him quizzically, but Baekhyun’s afraid of him leaving, so he says, “Just keep me company, then.”

“... What for?” Jongdae asks, not judging, but concerned. Baekhyun doesn’t have the heart to tell him that his mind is somewhere where he’s spent a long time trying to keep it out of, right now, and he doesn’t trust himself to handle it alone. The best way to distract himself from it is with people and noise, and Jongdae has so very much of the latter, in his voice and his laugh, in the way he gets all indignant and whiney when Baekhyun teases him too much--

(--and then, a thought: _oh no_.)

“To spite Kyungsoo?” Baekhyun offers, instead of any of the real truth, but Jongdae seems to accept that, settling in on top of some crates as Baekhyun flits between stock in the tiny space, the engine quiet and glowing behind them, a warm pillar that dominates the centre of the room. He knows Jongdae won’t mind the company, either, because he’s too kind to complain otherwise, and sometimes he just… reeks of loneliness, in a way Baekhyun can’t ignore but hasn’t found a way to ask him about. “That’s something we should do before we meet with Joohyun, you know,” Baekhyun blurts, because there’s only so much buzzing from the engine he can stand before his ears start to get irritated with all the white noise. He needs _variability_. “Teach you to read.”

“Even with the chip?” Jongdae asks, surprised, and Baekhyun nods.

“Think so,” he answers noncommittally, frowning when he opens one of the storage pods. It must’ve had a leak in the casing, because the food is rotten. That cuts into their supplies severely --he’ll need to tell Kyungsoo to plan for a pitstop.

“That would be really great,” Jongdae says, and Baekhyun risks a glance, just to see the way Jongdae’s smile lights up his face like that. Ugh, stupid Terrans. Are all of them this pretty? Or do Kyungsoo’s three gods or the universe itself just hate Baekhyun. Pointedly, he looks away. “That way I won’t have to ask you guys about every little thing, I can just read like, Wikipedia summaries. It’ll be like high school lit essays all over again.”

“What’s a--” Baekhyun tries to shape out the vowels of Jongdae’s natural tongue. If the word doesn’t translate into Common, than the chip just lets it slip back into whatever its route is. “Week-ee-pee-dee-ya…?”

Jongdae laughs childishly. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.” He hums, and his legs swing back and forth, thumping against the crate he’s sitting on. “I kind of forget you won’t get half the jokes I make.”

“Don’t worry, they’re probably not funny either way,” Baekhyun replies casually, wincing when something lands against the back of his head. “Hey!”

“That’s what you get,” Jongdae replies snidely, stomping forward on uneven feet to pick up the boot he’d hastily chucked at Baekhyun’s head. Startled by the sudden proximity, face-to-face, Baekhyun freezes up, eyes dropping to Jongdae's prettily curved mouth before he can stop himself. “What?” Jongdae asks, noting the movement.

“Nothing,” Baekhyun lamely replies, and then, hesitantly, encircles his arms around Jongdae.

“Um,” Jongdae says, and a beat of silence passes. “You need to like. Actually touch me.”

“Shh,” Baekhyun chastises, his arms circled around Jongdae, but hovering above his skin. “I’m mentally preparing myself.”

“That’s what she said,” Jongdae mumbles, and Baekhyun pricks his shoulder with the pointed tip of his tail. “Ow!”

Slowly, Baekhyun closes his arms around Jongdae, feeling out this _hug_ business. It’s kind of weird at first, just warm and a little too close, like sex without all the fun parts and way too many clothes, but then Jongdae’s arms are settling around him, squeezing back, and it’s nicer without the awkward side-angle Jongdae had done it from before. In fact, it’s kind beyond pleasant, soothing Baekhyun’s mind and washing away the bad thoughts that threaten to peek out from the corner of his mind.

“Feel better?” Jongdae asks, and Baekhyun startles, pulling back, wondering how Jongdae had even noticed he’d felt off to begin with. Seeing the earnesty in Jongdae’s eyes, having learnt how observant he is, how attuned to emotions he can be over the past few cycles, well, Baekhyun isn’t sure why he thought the outcome would be different to begin with.

“Yeah,” he answers, honestly, because that’s what Jongdae deserves. Smiling, Baekhyun says, “Just let me finish counting and we can try the reading thing, maybe?”

“That would be great,” Jongdae answers, with a full-on grin that crinkles his eyes, curving his mouth into something that makes Baekhyun’s instinct flare because he wants to bite it, and _taste_ it, and again, Baekhyun has that same, familiar thought:

 _Oh no_.

  
  
  


 

“I can’t BELIEVE YOU!”

A slam, a stomp, a sigh. Jongdae settles into his seat, and Kyungsoo graces him with a confused --albeit wary-- look.

“I was just kidding!!!” Baekhyun tries from the back of the cockpit.

“I told you it wasn’t funny the first three hundred times,” Jongdae hisses, and it’s weird because Kyungsoo hasn’t ever really seen him this frustrated before, in hindsight. “But _noooo,_  keep telling me about how an infant does it better. Like I don’t already feel frustrated and worthless.”

“ _Jongdae_ \--” Baekhyun tries, but Jongdae’s already pushing past him, storming into Kyungsoo’s room as the door slides shut behind him. Baekhyun’s shoulders slump.

They’d spent the last few periods trying to teach Jongdae to read, as Baekhyun had explained all bright-eyed and giggly as he and Jongdae had disappeared into his bedroom to experiment with this newfound thing. It had made Kyungsoo feel excluded and out of place on his own damn ship which had been kind of stupid, really, but the fact that it didn’t work out brings him both a weird sense of satisfaction, and a pang of sadness.

And Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to make of that at all.

Instead of dwelling on it, however, he stands before Baekhyun can irritate Jongdae further, and simply says, “Pilot, would you?” Baekhyun obliges with a reluctant huff, and Kyungsoo walks up to his room, knocking lightly.

“Go away,” Jongdae says petulantly, before Kyungsoo can even open his mouth.

“Jongdae, please,” Kyungsoo tries, and at the lack of response, hits the button for the door anyway, finding Jongdae curled up in fetal position on his bed, upright, a grumpy pout on his lips. The door slides shut behind him with a satisfying _whoosh_. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Jongdae replies, to which Kyungsoo keeps pointedly staring at him for. “... No.”

Sighing, Jongdae shuffles aside as Kyungsoo sits closer to the bed, sitting on the edge of it tentatively as the mattress dips beneath his weight. He doesn’t say anything though, knowing that Jongdae will when he’s ready.

“It’s just…” Jongdae frowns, loosening his limbs so he’s sitting cross-legged. “I don’t know, it’s dumb to be so upset by it but Baekhyun keeps teasing me about the reading thing and it’s-- I _know_ I can’t read, I don’t need him to remind me.” He picks at something on the sheet, avoiding Kyungsoo’s eyes. “It just… doesn’t feel great to be illiterate.” He offers an awkward half-smile.

“Common is a pain to learn,” Kyungsoo reassures with a tiny shrug, remembering his own hatred of learning it back in highschool. Drovaryian is so much simpler. “I’m sure you’ll get it eventually, it will just take some time. You’re working against the chip in your head, too.”

“Well, I don’t think I want Baekhyun teaching me anytime soon,” Jongdae mumbles, which Kyungsoo isn’t surprised at. Baekhyun can be… insensitive, only at the worst of times, and it had taken Kyungsoo a while to get used to it, at first. But Jongdae is far softer than either of the criminals, even if he’s beginning to harden in ways Kyungsoo doesn't’t want to think about, so it’s no surprise he’s less hesitant to simply grin and bear it.

“Then I’ll do it.” Jongdae looks up, blinking at Kyungsoo strangely. “What? I’m not Baekhyun. I’m not going to tease you for it. Reading _does_ seem like something you'll need to be able to do, so one of us should.”

“You think you can handle my illiterate ass?” Jongdae jokes, devoid of amusement as Kyungsoo just frowns.

“Jongdae,” he reprimands. “You’ll get it eventually. Don’t berate yourself so quickly.”

Jongdae sighs at that, softening, and, tentatively, he offers Kyungsoo a small smile. “Thanks, Kyungsoo.”

And Kyungsoo stares at that smile for far longer than necessary, engraved into the back of his mind.

They don’t actually begin the teaching lessons until a little later in the cycle though, and Kyungsoo understands where Baekhyun’s and Jongdae’s frustrations both are coming from. It’s difficult for Jongdae to think in Common while his brain is translating everything back into his Terran language, so Kyungsoo has to carefully emphasize the way they speak and the sounds they make, in order to teach the characters properly. UTCs are double-edged swords, in that way, fixing the auditory component but screwing up the written, but slowly, Jongdae seems to be picking up the shapes of the characters, and managing to string some words together. His handwriting is still a little shaky as Kyungsoo makes him trace out shapes on a holo-pad, but it’s evident that Jongdae _had_ been literate back on Earth, and it seems to help, somewhat, with memorizing the fifty letters of the Common alphabet, and the way they shape into syllables.

Reading becomes Jongdae’s _thing_ , after that, even once Baekhyun finally owns up and apologises for being a dick, Jongdae brushes off his offers to procrastinate duties together in favour of reading. Kyungsoo shows him how to use a comm --which he can do, finally, since he can _read_ \-- how to browse the galactic network, and how to (illegally) download ebooks, and Jongdae loves it, absorbing every speck of information like a space-sponge. When his dreams bother him too much to sleep, Jongdae will sit in Baekhyun’s chair beside Kyungsoo at the pilot’s seat, and will curl into it and read in the silence. It’s fine though, oddly enough, Kyungsoo enjoys the company.

And he enjoys the excited glint in Jongdae’s eyes every time he shares a fun fact or asks a question. Questions about species Kyungsoo have met, if they’re really x, y, or z, the places he’s been, the things he’s seen, confirming Jongdae’s knowledge or reassuring it. Kyungsoo notices the way his accent begins to clear up slowly, too, correcting the sounds of his vowels, the way old, Terran language begins to slowly trickle out of his vocabulary, using the proper measurements of time and length and volume. At one stage Jongdae even _cooks_ \--albeit with Kyungsoo’s help-- using up what little fresh ingredients they have leftover from Aelia into some semblance of a dish that Kyungsoo gently guides him through. Eventually, there’s too much for Jongdae to keep track of, so he settles for resting his chin on Kyungsoo’s shoulder and placing a hand on his waist, just to watch. The proximity is strange, but not entirely unwelcome, even if it makes all of Kyungsoo's wiring and circuits feel... strange.

Kyungsoo had scheduled for no pit stops between Aelia and Naeveria, but with the sudden leak in their storage --which Baekhyun couldn’t have noticed _before_ they left, of course, even though that had been the only thing he'd needed to do-- they’ll have to take a slight detour and increase it to one, just to make sure they don’t run out of fuel or supplies --a quick layover in Cainus. It makes for a slightly elongated trip, which, in hindsight, might be better for Jongdae in the long run, because it will give him more time to prepare himself for whatever awaits him at Naeveria. (It also ensures Baekhyun and Kyungsoo get to spend a little more time with him before they separate, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Cainus isn’t a terrible planet, for one that’s so heavily polluted by carbon monoxide, the lifeforms who aren’t native and require oxygen to breathe --which is a large majority of the populace within Unity-- are forced to require filter masks, so that the carbon monoxide doesn’t suffocate them. Jongdae doesn’t ask when Kyungsoo hands him a spare filter, having already known about it beforehand. He really does do his readings ahead of time.

They walk around the markets in relative silence, as Jongdae proudly reads the signs and price tags and Kyungsoo makes a point to praise him on it, as Baekhyun makes snide comments about _him_ being able to read but Kyungsoo never praising _him_ about it. At that, predictably, Jongdae just sticks his tongue out at Baekhyun tauntingly, and Kyungsoo rolls his eyes while continuing to move through the stores while ignoring the two children he’d apparently decided to bring along with him. No wonder Baekhyun had made a terrible common teacher

They find a suitable replacement container to bring aboard the ship, and fill it with supplies for the rest of the trip. Jongdae says, “I can’t believe you guys bother even buying things when you could just steal it.”

Baekhyun grins with all-teeth and says, “Shoplifting is beneath us.”

Even once they’ve bought enough to last, neither Baekhyun or Kyungsoo make a move to say as such, silently agreeing that they’re both happy enough to watch Jongdae wander around the planet, disappointed that the filter mask obscures his face. Kyungsoo can still see the way his eyes sparkle behind the clear lenses though, and that, he supposes, is good enough. Jongdae is adjusting to the whole new life thing very quickly, and it makes Kyungsoo… proud? Makes him feel a whole mix of feelings, really, but none of them are appropriate or should be thought about in great detail. Jongdae is not a permanent fixture in their life, Kyungsoo knows, so he shouldn't let himself naively wish otherwise.

“Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun warns lowly at one stage, which startles Kyungsoo out of his praising-Jongdae reverie. “We have company.” His tails flick inconspicuously to the left, and Kyungsoo’s eyes slide to find two figures impassively watching them behind the crowd of the market. Kyungsoo had been so caught up in watching Jongdae and answering his questions, he hadn’t even noticed. At least one of them is on guard. Baekhyun’s ears twitch atop his head.

“How long have they been following us?” Kyungsoo asks, making sure Jongdae doesn’t hear.

“A period, maybe before that.” Baekhyun growls low in his throat. “Do you think they know about Jongdae?”

“Or maybe they know about us,” Kyungsoo replies, making eye contact with Baekhyun through the lenses of their mask. It wouldn’t be the first batch of bounty hunters they’d ever come across, either looking to snag a Kuhonian or hearing rumours of the cyborg aboard the Moonlight. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo aren’t exactly well-known throughout the galaxy, and they keep their anonymity well, but sometimes…

“Maybe both,” Baekhyun replies. “We did steal from our own buyer… you did say they didn’t exactly seem happy about that.”

“We need to lose them,” Kyungsoo mutters decisively. “Get a headstart before they can follow.”

Baekhyun nods slightly, agreeing, and the plasters a smile on his face, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around Jongdae’s waist, startling him as Baekhyun leans his head over his shoulder playfully.

“Hey Dae,” he starts conversationally, still smiling. “You’re a fast runner, right?”

“Um, not really,” Jongdae says, blinking, glancing between Baekhyun and Kyungsoo nervously. “Why…?”

“Just follow our lead,” Kyungsoo says cooly, and steps forward, thankful they’d had the foresight to have already loaded the ship. Jongdae swallows, throat bobbing, but obeys nonetheless, a hand gripping at Kyungsoo’s sleeve just in case.

They wander around aimlessly for a few nano-periods, just so Kyungsoo can make sure the two figures are definitely following them --which they are undoubtedly are-- and thus begins the game of weaving through the crowd, taking sudden turns, trying to lose them, Jongdae’s grip growing tighter and tighter beside Kyungsoo.

“Soo…” Baekhyun warns, glancing backwards. “It’s not working.”

“This way,” Kyungsoo says, and they double the pace a little, splitting into downtown. There are homeless people on the street, huddled in blankets and wheezing through broken filter masks, cradling bottles of mist against their chest. A crowd of teenagers sit around an artificial fire and shoot eternity into their heads, laughing far too loudly and watching the trio with hungry eyes. Jongdae huddles even closer to Kyungsoo, and Kyungsoo hates it, because Jongdae doesn’t need to _see_ such an ugly side to everything, but it’s here nonetheless, plain in the open, gaping and oozing. It’s the only way they’ll have any chance of losing their pursuers, though, as Kyungsoo easily navigates through the copious amounts of side streets, finding stairways to the underground city and taking them down.

“Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun warns, at the top of the steps, wary of the darkness. “We-- We shouldn’t--”

“It’s the only way.” Kyungsoo states, firm, and Baekhyun casts one last look over his shoulder before following him into the shadows.

If the downtown part of Cainus’ capital is ugly, than the underground city is where it keeps its rotting roots, as something drips and echoes throughout the tunnels, another thing scuttling in the darkness. Kyungsoo’s mechanical eyes quickly adjust to the shadows, and he scans their surroundings, the path in front of them clear. His processors quickly load up a map of the place, and Kyungsoo says, “This way.” As he navigates them through the tunnels, careful to avoid any lifeforms his scanners pick up and stopping them around a corner when a ship passes through, hovering above the water. Any sort of shady business on Cainus happens down here, and Kyungsoo isn’t keen on being found out.

There’s a manhole not far from the ship docks that Kyungsoo leads them to, and he sends Baekhyun up first, to watch the exit, then Jongdae, casting one last scan before following them up the ladder, squinting into the light. Jongdae looks pale and shaking, Baekhyun’s tails flicking anxiously beside him, and Kyungsoo easily pushes the metal cover back into place, clenching his fist.

“Did we lose them?” Baekhyun asks, breathless, voice warbled by the distortion of the filter mask.

“I think so,” Kyungsoo replies, hesitant, just as Jongdae points behind them, arm quivering.

“No,” he says, and Kyungsoo follows the line of sight to another set of two figures who are quickly heading towards them. “We didn’t.”

“Shit,” Kyungsoo says, and this time, there’s no hesitation as he grabs Jongdae’s hand and sprints through the streets, weaving in and out.

“Who’s following us?” Jongdae huffs, Kyungsoo slowing his pace purposefully so that Baekhyun and Jongdae can keep up, no match for his cybernetic enhancements. “Police?”

Baekhyun snorts, and Kyungsoo quietly agrees. Intrapol --the intragalactic police force, or, more promptly, the Union’s _official_ dogs-- wouldn’t come within parsecs of Cainus even if someone _did_ dial the emergency number. While it may have a pretty surface, Cainus is just as seeped in darkness as the thieves require it to be to operate on it smoothly.

“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo answers, breathless, and quickly leads Jongdae and Baekhyun into a clothing store. “In here.”

“Hi how can I--” they ignore the snociel at the front counter as Kyungsoo rushes them up to the second level, where racks of morphsuits in all shapes and colours are on display, and he eagerly paces forward to the second floor window, opening it.

“Do you trust me?” Kyungsoo asks, as Baekhyun nods without hesitation and Jongdae stares at him, hesitant.

“I--” he starts, then shakes his doubt away. “--Yes.”

“Good,” Kyungsoo says. “Then follow my lead.”

He watches the crowd carefully, to when the two people following him enter the shop, and the first thing he realises is that they _aren’t_ the same as the ones from before, wearing different masks and different clothing, a slightly different build. He doesn’t know what to make of that, but in the heat of things, that doesn’t matter, as Kyungsoo easily jumps out the window and lands on the streetside fluidly, causing passersby to gasp and murmur and hurry down the sidewalk.

“Jump!” Kyungsoo shouts, and Jongdae hesitates before falling, keeping a hand over his mouth to stop any noises as Kyungsoo carefully catches him, lowering him to his feet. Baekhyun follows suit, closing the window on his way, and then they quickly sprint to the next alleyway over, hoping that the confusion of their disappearance should buy them enough time.

There’s a fork in the pathing as the alleyway intersects with another street, both barred off with wire fence gates, and Jongdae yells, “Wait!” Before tearing off a strip of fabric from his sleeve with his teeth, and sticking it on the top of the opposite fence. “Maybe this will distract them.”

“Good thinking,” Kyungsoo notes, momentarily shocked by Jongdae’s decisiveness, just as Baekhyun mumbles, “That’s my favourite jacket…”

“Sorry Baekhyunnie,” Jongdae replies, grinning, and Baekhyun’s tails easily droop in forgiveness because who could ever resent that smile, really.

By the time they make it back to the shipping bay, the lot is empty, and they easily pile aboard the ship as Kyungsoo rushes to the pilot’s seat to start the engine. He doesn’t like the fact that someone’s following them and he doesn’t know who or _why_ , but he also doesn’t like the fact that what little of a head start they have, probably isn’t enough. The radar and electro-pulse scanners reassure Kyungsoo that there’s no one on their trail, and he enters hyperspace as soon as he’s out of the planet’s atmosphere --which is a violation of road laws, but he’s pretty sure there aren’t any highway patrols around here, so they should be okay.

“Was that--” Jongdae starts, cutting through the silence. “--Was that because of me…?”

It’s evidently what’s weighing over their minds, right now, but it’s not as if Kyungsoo had particularly wanted to stop and ask the strangers who they were and they thought they were doing. He could lie, try to reassure Jongdae, brush it off as a side effect of the space thieves thing, but he knows better than that.

“I don’t know.” Kyungsoo answers honestly. Baekhyun wraps his arms around Jongdae in silent reassurance.


	6. Chapter 6

It’s hard to sleep at night when Baekhyun has this itching to check the scanners every three seconds, worried that someone might be on their tail, following the trail of fuel they leave behind them.

“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says one cycle, a metal hand falling heavily onto his shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

Baekhyun tries to relax, leaning into the touch. “Yeah,” he agrees, looking at the empty scanners. “We are.”

They’d already lost Jongdae once; Baekhyun isn’t very keen on doing it again. The first time had been through a city; Baekhyun has a feeling that if the people after them _do_ want Jongdae, then it will be a chase throughout the entire galaxy, and that’s something Baekhyun’s predatory state won’t help with, not to mention the rest of him.

It’s not a nice feeling, being helpless. Baekhyun hated it on Kuhonia, hated it when he was homeless on Xarah, and hates it now, too.

Regardless, he needs the static in his head to go away, and just needs to reassure himself, so he tracks down Jongdae, who’s reading something lazily on Kyungsoo’s bed. He’s made a habit of sleeping there more often than not, rather than in Baekhyun’s room, and it makes something in Baekhyun’s stomachs rear its ugly head at the thought. 

“Whatcha reading?” He asks childishly, just to be annoying, because teasing Jongdae is the best part of having him aboard -- _especially_ when he blushes. Before Jongdae can even answer, Baekhyun flicks to holo-screen towards himself, and laughs at what greets him.

“Kuhonia, Kuhonians, and Their Mysteries,” he reads from the top of the page, as Jongdae turns bright red. “Oh look at that, you’re up to the chapter on the sexual life cycle.” Now Jongdae is positively stammering, at a total loss for words. “You know,” Baekhyun starts slyly, grinning. “If you wanted me to give you the birds and the bees talk, you could’ve just asked.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Jongdae replies, whining, swiping the holo-screen back into Kyungsoo’s comm and pulling an indignant face. “I just happened to be up to that chapter, okay? I’ve been reading books on every species I’ve encountered, you’re not special.”

Baekhyun pointedly ignores that, and instead says, “I wasn’t kidding, you know.” He settles beside Jongdae, tails flicking playfully. “If you wanted to know something, you really could’ve just asked.”

“I don’t want to bother you…” Jongdae mumbles. “And it’s quicker this way.” He had a point there, Baekhyun supposes, that book probably knows far more about Kuhonia than Baekhyun ever had. Silence settles between them, and although it isn’t awkward, it does make Baekhyun’s skin itch, so he attempts to break it.

“Well, if you have any _other_ questions, you can ask…?” He offers, as Jongdae’s mouth opens, then closes, lips twisting together.

“What was Kuhonia like?” He asks, and it catches Baekhyun off-guard, the raw curiosity in it. So much of the Red Isles and all that surrounds them is either taboo or scorned no thanks to their stance against the Union. Baekhyun has never once been asked about his home planet. "I mean I just-- for you. What was it like?"

“It’s…” Baekhyun starts, trailing off. “Not very red.” Jongdae smiles at that. “Really pretty, actually. There are forests and animals everywhere… a lot of the planet is really underdeveloped.” He pauses. “At least, compared to the Union. On Kuhonia it’s just the norm, you know?” Jongdae nods, gesturing for Baekhyun to continue. “The days are short but the nights are long, which is good for hunting… hunting is. A _very_ big thing there.”

Jongdae hums. “Because of the… predatory state right? The thing where you had black eyes.”

Baekhyun grins. “Actually, just because we _are_ predators. Kuhonians are still mostly hunter-gatherers, with a little bit of trade, but mostly between family.” Baekhyun winces. “Family is another big thing down there. It’s all they --we-- have.”  

A beat of silence, before Jongdae hesitantly asks, “What’s yours like?”

“Loud,” Baekhyun answers, without even having to think about it, as Jongdae laughs at the eagerness to which he’d answered. “Small, though. Just my moms, grandma and my brother.” Not that he’d spoken to any of them since he’d left; not that they’d welcome him back even if he had returned. The most contact Baekhyun has with them are the little deposits of money he transfers through the Kuhonian bank account he still has set up via a VPN for the Kuhonian internet. Family is a big thing on Kuhonia, and Baekhyun had betrayed his the moment he'd decided to leave.

Jongdae seems to mull over this, before asking, “Is it true you only have one sex?”

“Yep,” Baekhyun answers easily. “But that’s not uncommon with most species, it’s usually one or two.” Of course gender was an entirely different subject, but Jongdae already knew that. “What about Terr-- uh, humans?”

“Two sexes,” Jongdae answers. “Kind… of? I think it’s a little more complicated than that in reality because of chromosomes and stuff and some people have traits that belong to both or neither? But in general it’s classified into two. Or um, was.” Jongdae seems to grow uncomfortable with the whole _my species is extinct_ thing, and quickly changes the topic. “Do you guys really mate for life?”

“Yep,” Baekhyun replies lazily, but it’s not like they’re the only species that does that. A Kuhonian’s mate is meant to be their all-encompassing everything, a second half of sorts; Baekhyun’s mothers had explained that it was like never knowing you were broken until you found the other person to complete you. A Kuhonian was never meant to show romantic attraction to anyone outside their pre-designated mate --deigned by hormones and whatnot-- which Baekhyun is pretty sure is a whole lot of bull, all things considered (i.e Kyungsoo and Jongdae  _both_.) “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re so…” Jongdae doesn’t finish his sentence, but Baekhyun can think of a whole string of words between promiscuous and flirtatious that might finish it.

“Well, yeah, but it’s not like every Kuhonian is the exact same.” He huffs. “Besides, I’m only like that _because_ I’ve been told I can only ever mate and fall in love with one person my whole life… and it’s not like my career exactly allows it,” Baekhyun adds on slyly, glancing sideways at Jongdae. The only way he could be in a _relationship_ was if the person in question was a part of their crew, or something, since he’s not exactly the long distance type, and the only person who even slightly fills out that requirement is, well, Kyungsoo. But that’s… not something Baekhyun needs to think about, _ever,_ even if he does in the quieter, more self-indulgent moments. Quickly, he changes the topic. “Kuhonian culture just isn’t for me, you know? That’s why I left.”

“I guess I never considered that…” Jongdae trails off, slipping back into silence. He’s peering at Baekhyun curiously, though, and Baekhyun wonders if they’re on the same train of thought, if Jongdae can see the way Baekhyun loves Kyungsoo like both his hearts have been pulled from his chest, the way he wouldn't hesitate to pull all the stars from the galaxy and hand them to him.

“What was it like for humans?” Baekhyun asks, quick to change the topic, as Jongdae gives him a mildly confused look. “You know. Sex. Mating.” He elaborates, both curious and... well. Needing to do some research. “The whole shebang.”

“Oh,” Jongdae says, in realisation, and turns a little pink, although Baekhyun isn’t sure if that’s in embarrassment for not realising what he’d been referring to or the question itself. Man, either way, Baekhyun loves the blushing thing, every time it happens. “It’s uh-- well, we’re taught that it’s meant to be for life, but it… rarely is?” He thinks over his words carefully. “But I guess some people don’t mate in pairs either, and uh, sometimes people mate in pairs that can't even produce offspring, some people just _mate_ , some people are just… together without even having sex?”

Baekhyun wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Sounds complicated.”

Jongdae laughs. “You have no idea.”

The bedroom door opens, and Kyungsoo stands at the threshold, startled.

“Am I… interrupting something?” He asks, noting the way Baekhyun and Jongdae are sitting face-to-face on his bed.

“Nope,” Baekhyun replies cheerily, giving Kyungsoo a cheeky grin. “We were just talking about our mating cultures. What’s it like for Drovaryians?”

Jongdae seems exceptionally flustered by this, but Kyungsoo remains indifferent.

“Three parents per offspring, one of each sex,” Kyungsoo answers, humming in thought as he thinks about it carefully. “Very rarely bonded for life, though. Most sexual relationships are very open. I grew up with seven parents raising me.”

“ _Seven_ ,” jongdae repeats, eyes-wide. “How would you-- how do you even keep track?”

“Very easily,” Kyungsoo replies slyly. “But I wouldn’t call my relationship with any of them particularly close, especially since I left Drovarys bands ago and became a criminal.” 

Jongdae seems aghast at this, but Baekhyun just laughs.

“Three to mate sounds fun,” Baekhyun jokes to change the topic, grinning slyly. “Too many limbs though, maybe.” He waggles his eyebrows at Kyungsoo, who shrugs.

“I wouldn’t know,” he replies. “It’s not like I can…” he trails off, gesturing vaguely to his metal body.

Jongdae looks sympathetic, but Baekhyun just snorts. “You could always get mods, you know.”

Kyungsoo rolls his eye. “Because that’s a conversation I want to have with Chanyeol,” he deadpans. “Ask him for a robot dick.”

Jongdae chokes, and Baekhyun shrugs. “I’m just saying. There are plenty of ways cyborgs can have sex, you’re just not adventurous enough.”

“Or maybe you’re _too_ adventurous,” Kyungsoo replies drily, and Baekhyun wonders, then, just how long Kyungsoo’s gone without an orgasm --or at least, the simulation of one. Huh, no wonder he can be so uptight. “You think I don’t know about wireplay and ghostmods?” Kyungsoo pulls a face. “It’s just too risky. I can’t afford to mess up my software _or_ hardware.”

“Boriiinngggg,” Baekhyun teases, as Kyungsoo just ignores him and heads into the bathroom anyway, to empty his special little robot pipes, no doubt. Baekhyun huffs, and Jongdae just sighs, slapping his palm against his reddening face.

“So?” Baekhyun prompts, as he crawls forward and curls up next to Jongdae, throwing his arms across his body. Ever since the whole hugging fiasco Baekhyun can’t get enough of all the proximity, and it’s even better to discover that Jongdae is clearly just as touch-starved. Plus, he always smells so... different when Baekhyun (or Kyungsoo) touches him, sweet and a little salty, and it's oddly empowering. “What else have you been reading?”

“Well--” Jongdae starts, happy to share, and Baekhyun closes his eyes, just for a second, hearing the faint sounds of Jongdae’s single heart, and curling his tails in time with it.

 

 

 

As Jongdae passes the cycles either reading or bothering Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, he quickly becomes increasingly aware of the unspoken timer that sits above their heads, counting down the micro-periods they have left together. Jongdae knows he can’t stay with them both forever, can’t impose on them like that and can’t just… _be_ a criminal, but some part of him has grown attached, and he doesn’t exactly want to leave.

Very, very attached.

Maybe it’s the way Baekhyun looks at him like there’s no one else in the room, always leaning into his space and brushing his smooth, hairless skin against every inch of Jongdae’s, or maybe it’s the softness in Kyungsoo’s face that contrasts with the hardness of the metal, the patience he takes when listening to Jongdae and the mellow timbre of his voice. Either way, Jongdae knows Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are more than just thieves who stumbled across him, now that he knows all he can about them both, they’re his friends, his _only_ friends in the entire universe, the closest thing he has to a family. It’s stupid, and patchy, and Jongdae knows he shouldn’t feel this way, but his heart thumps a little louder in his chest every time he’s near either of them and it makes him pray that Baekhyun can’t hear it. It’s understandable that he’d be so attached to the only people to show him so much kindness --despite… everything-- but he doesn’t want to be _this_ attached. The fact that they can’t stay together forever only hastens his feelings, strengthens them, makes them escalate in their desperateness. 

Jongdae’s never dealt with having feelings for two people at once, let alone aliens, and the logistics of it daunts him. Yet somehow, at the same time, it just feels _right_. This is Jongdae’s life, now, he can’t afford to hold onto the old ways of Earth -- _Terra_ \-- and the Terrans that had inhabited it. It’s a startling revelation, filled with new sensations and feelings, but at the same time, it just feels… fulfilling.

And okay, so maybe Jongdae hadn’t coincidentally been up to the chapter on the mating habits of Kuhonians, but no one can fault him for being a little curious. It’s not like he’d skipped the rest of the book! Just… skim read, to get a little ahead. He’d just wanted to know how it would work, in hindsight, ever since the whole Soojung thing, and to maybe amuse himself by imagining if he could handle such… daunting anatomy, after a particular shower with unwanted fantasies where Jongdae's imagination had been too lacking to fill in the gaps. Luckily Baekhyun hadn’t caught him reading the book about Drovaryians, though, because that had come with _pictures_ which had turned Jongdae bright red and uncomfortably turned on before he’d realised that Kyungsoo doesn’t _look_ like other Drovaryians anyway, especially when he’s naked, because his body is steel and carbon-fiber from most of the neck down… Jongdae thinks.

Either way, Jongdae blames human nature for his curiosity regarding the logistics of fucking aliens (not that he’d ever preposition either Baekhyun or Kyungsoo --because, _wow_ ) mostly because that’s what popular culture was all about. Vampire romances, alien dildos, Guillermo del Toro-brand fish monsters and alien shooters-slash-dating-sims… Jongdae is totally justified in his attraction (and subsequent curiosity) towards Baekhyun and Kyungsoo in the face of all his _feelings_. Totally.

(And oh, now he’s admitted that’s what it is; not a good sign.)

Regardless, Jongdae buries the thoughts for now, ignoring the mound they leave behind, and puts on fresh clothes after showering, swallowing his nanobot pills, ignoring the way the mixed items smell like Baekhyun and Kyungsoo both, reaching around to the back of his neck where the switch for them is, allowing the clothes to meld to his skin. He keeps the jacket oversized though, letting the sleeves hang past his fingertips.

“Problem,” Baekhyun starts, as soon as Jongdae enters the cockpit, Kyungsoo reentering from the loading bay after having paid for parking. “We’re early.”

“And that’s a problem because…?” Jongdae prompts.

“ _Because_ Joohyun won’t be here until tomorrow, like we originally agreed.”

Jongdae pouts. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to explore this vast, rich planet, teeming with wildlife and native species unlike anywhere else in the galaxy and oh! Look at that,” Jongdae looks down at his wrist, completely devoid of a watch. “According to the stardate we’ve currently landed in the middle of Naeveria’s Traveler’s Festival, a must-experience for all tourists.”

Baekhyun and Kyungsoo exchange amused eye contact. “Someone’s been doing their homework,” Baekhyun notes slyly, as Kyungsoo re-opens the loading bay he’d _just_ closed and they all head towards it. Jongdae grins unrepentantly.

“You know, I never did the class readings in school, but if they’d been about aliens, I probably would’ve.”

“The only alien here is you~” Baekhyun sing-songs pointedly, and Jongdae just shakes his head fondly.

It’s nice to get off the ship and get some fresh air, and Jongdae can tell they’re all thinking about it, stretching into the open space as he cranes his neck around to admire Naeveria. The foliage surrounding the shipping dock comes in every colour imaginable, and the sight of two suns in the sky doesn’t deter Jongdae from feeling the sunshine upon his skin, happy to be out and about.

“I’ve never been to a Traveler’s Festival before,” Kyungsoo admits, as they begin heading towards the centre of Tak, the city they’d agreed to meet Joohyun in. “I’ve heard of it though… I think.”

Jongdae grins. “Should’ve done your homework.”

By the time they reach the city street where the festival is being held, the suns have long since crossed each other, beginning their descent and turning the purple sky crimson. The streets are lined with parade booths marketing off trinkets and sweet-smelling food and other sorts of things, the actual buildings themselves closed and the road blocked off so that people can walk down it. Jongdae heads to the first stall they come across, rich with the scent of spices he can’t name as strange looking pieces of confectionery are laid out behind a glass case.

“What is it?” Jongdae asks Kyungsoo, who hums as he assesses the pieces.

“Moonbread,” he answers. “It’s quite good. Did you want some?”

“Oh, that’s--” Jongdae starts, but Baekhyun cuts him off with, “Fuck yeah.”

Kyungsoo smiles, waving his hand over a small machine to transfer credits, and the vendor silently gives them three pieces, face impassive as they do, disinterested.

“Man, I haven’t had moonbread in forever,” Baekhyun says, biting into the dough with a satisfied noise. It’s unsurprisingly sweet, but heavily spiced too, and where Jongdae had been expecting the texture of, well, bread, he instead finds it still doughy and soft, warm.

“This is so good,” he notes, with a surprised look, and Kyungsoo grins at him in all his heart-shaped glory as he nibbles at his own piece. Jongdae's heart seizes in his chest as he pointedly thinks,  _not now._

They flit from stall to stall after that, watching the busking spectacles whenever they come across them, jugglers with six arms and dancers with four legs, vague, inhuman looking amorphous creatures performing magic tricks. It’s almost a little overwhelming, Jongdae thinks, the whole thing, but at the same time, it’s just… nice. Nice to joke with Baekhyun and Kyungsoo as he walks between them, as Kyungsoo makes the Drovaryian sign of gratitude to vendors and Baekhyun teases him for it, making fun of Baekhyun’s face whenever he smells something good and nearly slips into the predatory state because of it. Baekhyun demands Kyungsoo buy them anything that smells even remotely delicious, which is how Jongdae ends up trying half the food at the festival plaza and disliking a good chunk of it. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo keep smiling at each other and at Jongdae both, and it’s the happiest he thinks they’ve all ever felt in a very, very long time.

“I can’t _believe_ you don’t like spacequid,” Baekhyun says, with a disappointed shake of the head as he takes the stick out of Jongdae’s hand, speared through a strange, rich, rubber-like meat.

“I think you'll just eat anything,” Jongdae decides, which Baekhyun shrugs at, not denying it.

As they begin to reach the end of the strip, down to the last few booths, it’s nearly completely nighttime, which leaves Jongdae antsy, because night is when the real festival begins. The last few stalls are mostly handmade crafts, tiny figurines carved from strange materials or hand-stitched clothes, strings of jewelry and beads. Something catches Jongdae’s attention and he stares at it, a small silver ring dangling from a black chord, but the pattern it’s been given makes it look like a rosary ring by coincidence, like the one Jongdae’s mother had given him for his 18th. It’s a strange time to be overwhelmed with sadness, but Jongdae’s not unfamiliar to the giant pits of loneliness that rest in his chest, as of late, as he touches the ring gingerly and knows that he’ll never see his mother ever again.

Before he can even say otherwise, though, Kyungsoo is asking the vendor for the price, and subsequently paying the forty credits, as Baekhyun unloops the chord from its display hook and places it around Jongdae’s neck instead, adjusting the double-looped rope so that the ring seats neatly over his heart.

“It suits you,” Baekhyun says decisively, long fingers still lingering at the back of Jongdae’s neck and causing his skin to tingle. Jongdae swallows.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he tells Kyungsoo, avoiding Baekhyun's golden, piercing eyes, who only shrugs in response.

“No,” Kyungsoo replies, then smiles. “But I wanted to.”

(And it’s stupid, Jongdae thinks, that he could ever feel alone, when he has Baekhyun and Kyungsoo with him.)

Jongdae leads them out of the city, explaining that there will be a lights show but it’s often better seen from far away according to rave reviews on the galaxynet, finding a secluded spot in a city park where they can clearly see the sky, lit up with thousands of stars, the Milky Way clearly seen streaking across it. It makes Jongdae feel so small compared to something so infinite, that isolated feeling in his chest growing larger and swallowing him whole, but then Baekhyun takes his hand, smiling, dragging him down to sit in the grass between him and Kyungsoo, and the feeling washes away, with their thighs and shoulders pressed together. Baekhyun begins making up constellations to pass the time as they wait for the lights display to start, causing Jongdae to laugh particularly loudly when he traces out a wide-eyed face and calls it _Kyungsoo_. Kyungsoo retaliates by drawing a cat in the air and calling it  _Baekhyun_ and Baekhyun reaches over Jongdae to hit Kyungsoo, saying _canine, not feline! Canine!_

They make a game out of it then, tracing numerous shapes that don’t even connect stars and laughing so loudly it would be obnoxious, if anyone were nearby. At one stage Jongdae begins to panic as the ground beneath them moves, but Kyungsoo reassures him with a hand on his shoulder by saying that it was just the nightblooms finally waking up to the moons. Tentatively, Jongdae makes out small shapes wriggling in the darkness, coming out from the dirt, and his jaw drops when a tiny, glowing blue flower pops out of the dirt and opens, causing small, jellyfish like creatures to float into the air.

“Oh, it must be reproduction season,” Kyungsoo notes, as one of the small glowing jelly fish lands on his outstretched fingers, tiny, glowing dots being released from its bell. “This is the sexual medusa phase.” He explains, as Jongdae looks at the creature in awe.

“Is it… a plant?” He asks, and Kyungsoo nods, even as Jongdae tentatively touches the creature and it immediately shies away, pushing itself off to another area.

“These are so cool until you remember it’s just a whole lot of eggs and sperm,” Baekhyun notes as he brushes away the tiny glowing specks. Kyungsoo gives him an unimpressed look. “What?”

“Way to kill the mood,” he replies slyly, but Baekhyun’s reply is cut off by a sudden bang.

It’s not a lights show, even if that’s what they’d called it, Jongdae quickly realises, it’s a fireworks show.

But the fireworks here aren’t like they had been on earth, so much brighter and bigger and _moving_ , as they trigger chain reactions amongst each other and form pictures of stories Jongdae doesn’t know or recognise --probably something to do with the tale of the traveler, no doubt. It’s an amazing display to watch, even as his ears ring from the loudness of the explosions, but as Baekhyun comes to rest his head on Jongdae’s shoulder, ears tickling the side of his neck, Jongdae doesn’t question it, just tugs Kyungsoo closer subsequently and feels the way his metal limbs shift, accommodating him. Kyungsoo is always so gentle, like he’s afraid of his own strength. He knows he should continue watching the display, but Jongdae’s eyelids droop once, filled with food and warmth, comfortable and content. Between Baekhyun and Kyungsoo he feels strangely… whole, but in a way that makes him think he hadn’t even realised he’d been broken to begin with, before now.

As the fireworks fade from the sky, leaving nothing but a beautiful, permanent display of lights behind, not unlike the aurora borealis back on Earth, Baekhyun says, “You’re leaving soon.”

It’s not like Jongdae wasn’t aware of the fact, just that he’d been pointedly ignoring it, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

“Yeah,” he agrees, as Kyungsoo remains unreadably silent beside him. “I am.”

“It’s for the best,” Kyungsoo says, quietly, and they all know it’s true, but for some reason, Jongdae can’t quite bring himself to believe that, the atmosphere around them shifting to something far more solemn, even when precedented by so much joy and surrounded by so much beauty.

“I know I have to,” Jongdae says, curling into himself tighter. “And I know it's for the best, But I don’t want to leave you two.”

Because despite everything, he’s spent months -- _r_ _otations_ \-- with these two, who have given him everything they had to offer, who have taught him and laughed with him and been _kind_ to him. A rag-tag duo of space thieves with two of the biggest hearts in the galaxies --or, five, since Baekhyun has two hearts and Kyungsoo has three. They've shown him the galaxy and taught him how to live within it, given him a second chance, given him another _home_. Despite everything that’s happened, every lie and deception and argument that's only been resolved and strengthened the bond between them further, Jongdae is glad he found these two --or, at the very least, glad that they found him.

Baekhyun hooks his fingers under Jongdae’s jaw, forcing him to look up as Baekhyun shifts, no longer leaning against Jongdae.

“If you don’t want to leave,” he starts, so quiet Jongdae can barely hear it, face illuminated by the nightblooms surrounding them in shades of pastel blue. “Then don’t.”

“But I don’t have a good reason to stay,” Jongdae whispers, searching Baekhyun’s face fearfully, because at the end of the day he’s a commodity, and they’re thieves, and he can’t just--

“Yes you do,” Baekhyun says, reckless, and leans down to kiss Jongdae.

It’s nothing much, just a soft press of lips. Baekhyun’s mouth is smooth and softer than what Jongdae is used to, and he draws back with wide eyes.

“That--” Jongdae starts, breathing harshly even though he shouldn’t be so out of breath from one simple kiss. “--That means the same to you as it does to me, right?”

Baekhyun swallows, still staring at Jongdae’s mouth as he licks his lips with a blue tongue. “I hope so.”

Jongdae feels Kyungsoo flinch away, but he immediately reaches out to wrap his fingers around Kyungsoo’s arm, feeling the way the metal hums beneath his palm.

“Don’t think that this isn’t about all of us,” Jongdae says immediately, having figured Kyungsoo would be as cautious about this as he is everything else, always worried about getting hurt or worse: hurting others. Jongdae feels infinitely small and infinitely indestructible and the invisible clock ticking down doesn’t help in the slightest.

“You can’t--” Kyungsoo starts, faltering. “--You can’t do that.” He says, almost frustrated. “You can’t just come into our lives and change everything and--” he looks at Baekhyun, breathless. “...and then leave.”

“You said it yourself,” Baekhyun says softly. “It’s for the best.” He shuffles forward, then, causing the nightblooms beneath his knees to shiver and curl outwards, their medusas frantically pushing themselves away through the air.

Kyungsoo looks at Baekhyun, searching his face, and Jongdae thinks about everything between them, their history and their past, the way they understand each other beyond words. They were each other’s missing piece long before Jongdae came into the equation, he’s simply just been the glue to seal them together, forcing them to confront what had hung within their ship unspoken, unacknowledged. Maybe, in a way, that had been for the best, because Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s feelings run deeper for each other than simple romantic affections, Jongdae knows, and it makes them subsequently dangerous when acknowledged, fragile and delicate; but he’s also alone, and tired, and scared and _selfish_ \--he no longer cares about the consequences, doesn’t have the time for such a thing.

So without even thinking about it, or giving Baekhyun and Kyungsoo a chance to sort their shit out, Jongdae leans forward, and kisses Kyungsoo, feeling the way he tenses before relaxing into it, the coolness of his metal half contrasting with the softness of his skin. It definitely doesn’t feel like any other kiss Jongdae has experienced, not just because of the cyborg thing, or the foreignness of his skin and mouth, but simply because of Kyungsoo’s tenderness, the way it isn’t hungry or forceful or rushed. It’s just a kiss, but, in a way, for Kyungsoo and Jongdae --and Baekhyun too, by extension-- it’s a lot more than that.

“Fuck you,” is all Kyungsoo says, once Jongdae pulls back, startled, and then he’s surging forward to kiss him again, all teeth and metal and tongue yet somehow still so hesitant. Jongdae briefly sees Baekhyun grinning at them before his eyes slip shut again, and then there’s a second mouth at his neck, sucking small bruises and punctuating them with rings of sharp teeth. It’s incredibly overwhelming, and Jongdae finds his temperature quickly rising, dealing with the fact that this is the first time he’s kissed someone in over 1600 years. With everything else going on and his dreams being nothing more than nightmares, Jongdae hadn’t even had a chance to think about anything sex-related enough to get him properly aroused beyond a quick jerk-off in the shower and _wow_ , yeah, now he’s just going to have a hard time _forgetting_.

“Um,” he says, flushed and breathless as Kyungsoo leers above him, scrutinising his face. “Can we-- somewhere else…?” Jongdae has forgotten how to talk entirely, it seems, but the last thing on his mind is having sex in some random public park. Well, having sex is the first thing on his mind, really, but the location might kill the mood a little.

“Let’s go back to the ship,” Kyungsoo says, with all the captain-y captainess he has, and Baekhyun and Jongdae easily scramble to follow, Baekhyun throwing a little smirk when he catches Jongdae uh, rearranging himself in his pants.

“Shut up,” Jongdae hisses, embarrassed. “I haven’t had sex in over 2000 bands.”

“Play your cards right and I think we’ll be fixing that,” Baekhyun replies, winking; Jongdae just groans.

“Are we really--” Kyungsoo starts, as they board the Moonlight, skin a darker shade of pink than usual, ears flicking in nervousness. “--Are we really doing this?”

“I want to,” Baekhyun says, almost immediately. A beat of silence. “It’s not like we have much time to…” Enjoy all of this, Jongdae finishes for him, in his head. Be together.

“But I can’t…” Kyungsoo trails off, looking down at his body with a frown.

“That doesn’t matter,” Baekhyun reassures, interlocking their fingers, as Kyungsoo stares at the point of contact. “But this is about all of us, right? You can still… do… other things…?” he trails off, tails curling anxiously.

“Baekhyun? Flustered?” Kyungsoo teases, with a hesitant half-smile. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Shut up,” Baekhyun huffs, shoving Kyungsoo’s shoulder even as his other hand stays in place --if anything, it squeezes tighter. “This is a big deal for me!” He whines. “I’ve always…”

“Me too,” Kyungsoo breathes out, smiling hesitantly, and that’s all that needs to be said, between them. “Me too.”

“Good,” Baekhyun says, and reaches around to grab Jongdae’s hand with his own free one, tugging them towards Kyungsoo’s bedroom, effectively wiping away what little doubt had begun to sprung in Jongdae’s chest. This, everything, is about the three of them, _together_. And maybe in another lifetime Jongdae should be more confused by it, more worried about the consequences and the outcomes, but that lifetime died over 1600 years ago.

They stumble into Kyungsoo’s bedroom with smiles on their faces, and it doesn’t take long before Jongdae is straddling Baekhyun and kissing him from above, placing both hands around his face to keep him still and stealing the air from his lungs. Baekhyun pulls back, gasping for breath, and Jongdae grins down at him, equally as breathless but trying to hide it.

“Serves you right,” he teases, before something in Baekhyun’s pants move and Jongdae positively _squeaks_ , shirking away from him entirely.

Baekhyun laughs awkwardly. “Sorry.” Jongdae swallows, glancing down nervously.

“I don’t… know if I’m ready to deal with the... multiple dicks thing,” he admits, because yeah, okay, face-to-face with it he _really_ fucking isn’t. All the sentience of them just sounds a little intimidating, quite frankly, and although Jongdae’s looking to get laid, he isn’t… willing to do it at any pace other than _familiar_ , even if they don’t have much time to spare.

“Most people aren’t,” Baekhyun replies, with a small smile. He turns to Kyungsoo, who is simply standing behind them, watching the spectacle in silence. “What do you want to do?”

Kyungsoo shakes his head. “It’s up to you,” he tells Jongdae, who blinks in return. “Whatever you’re comfortable with. Yours is the body we aren’t familiar with, so…”

Of course, Jongdae realises, neither Baekhyun or Kyungsoo would know a single thing about how a human body works, although he assumes it would be pretty instinctive since most species share common traits. But at the same time, it’s not like Baekhyun and Kyungsoo have had sex with each other, even if they’re familiar with each other’s species, so it’s nice, in a way, that this is kind of new for all of them.

“Maybe you should give us a human biology lesson,” Baekhyun jokes, tails curling behind him playfully.

“Maybe you should,” Kyungsoo agrees, and then Jongdae’s being kissed, and pushed back, and Kyungsoo isn’t being gentle and even though he weighs a _ton_ Jongdae doesn’t care, allowing himself to lie down on the mattress with Kyungsoo above him, metal hands pushing the jacket off his shoulders, running around the hem of his shirt. The touch is featherlight, the bare ghost sensation of cool metal running along Jongdae’s skin, but it still makes him shiver, as Kyungsoo gestures to take Jongdae’s shirt off and Jongdae lets him, raising his arms so Kyungsoo can tug the snug material over his head. The necklace they’d bought him, Jongdae notes, stays on.

“Beautiful,” Baekhyun breathes out, and Jongdae doesn’t know if he’s talking about him, Kyungsoo, or the both of them together, and decides it doesn’t matter. Kyungsoo’s living eye seems somehow darker than usual as he stares down at Jongdae, panting, and it’s the most beautiful thing Jongdae has ever seen.

“Okay so, walk us through it,” Baekhyun starts, running his bare palms over the plane of Jongdae’s chest. “What are these?” Jongdae snorts at such bluntless until Baekhyun flicks the nipple in question.

“My nipples,” he hisses, rubbing the spot dejectedly and pouting childishly, swatting Baekhyun’s hands away. He pushes himself until he’s sitting upright, with Kyungsoo still atop his thighs.

Baekhyun tilts his head. “You have mammary glands?” He searches Jongdae’s chest, visibly confused. “ _Where_?”

Okay so Jongdae’s never been so turned off in his life, probably. “ _No_ ,” he answers, and feels his boner wither and die. Farewell. “They’re………... decorative.”

Baekhyun snorts. “Humans are so weird.” He decides, as Kyungsoo just sighs and pinches the metal bridge of his nose.

“Can we at least try to make this biology lesson sexy?” He asks, frowning. “You’re killing the mood.”

“Oh, are you into teacher-student roleplay?” Baekhyun teases, crawling forward as Kyungsoo flicks his forehead with his hand, a solid thud of metal on skin. “ _Ow_.”

“Sorry,” Jongdae apologises to Kyungsoo, then drops his voice down to a lower register as he repeats, “They’re…….. _Decorative_.” With a sexual lilt to his voice.

“Goodbye.” Kyungsoo replies, standing, and Jongdae can only laugh as Baekhyun scrambles to tug him back down to the bed, insisting that they were just joking around and the Sexy Biology Lesson™ can now begin again. “I hate you both,” Kyungsoo says, but he’s still here with them, so Jongdae doesn’t quite believe him.

Baekhyun turns to Jongdae with a grin, and traces out a line on his neck. “What are these?” He asks, repeating the pattern.

“Moles,” Jongdae answers, matter-of-factly, and then Baekhyun leans forward to trace the line of them with his tongue and the sexy gets put back into sexy biology lesson because _ah_ , neck kisses. “Skin… blemish… things…” Jongdae is not qualified in science enough to give this biology lesson, let alone in a sexy way.

Baekhyun cups Jongdae’s face in his palms and begins kissing every mole on his face, the ones beside his ears and his forehead, beneath his eyebrow, on top of his eyelid, the one beneath his jaw and on his collarbone. His kisses move down the plane of his chest and very, very hesitantly his mouth wraps around a nipple and sucks, causing Jongdae to moan before he can stop himself, covering his mouth with a hand in embarrassment.

“Interesting,” Baekhyun replies, with a predatory grin, and then Jongdae’s hand is being pried away by Kyungsoo who takes it into his own and begins kissing his fingertips, the palm of his hands, moving up his wrist.

“Don’t be ashamed of being noisy,” he chastises, which is so stupid in contrast with the low timbre of his voice, the darkness in his eyes, his mouth on Jongdae’s skin and the subsequent _things_ it’s doing to Jongdae right now. “We’re all used to Baekhyun, after all.”

“That’s right,” Baekhyun replies, smug, and then realising that what Kyungsoo had said was an insult, says, “ _Hey!_ ” Loudly and indignantly, proving Kyungsoo's point as he just laughs softly and shuffles on the bed to be behind Jongdae, kissing the back and side of his neck. Metal hands trace the expanse of his shoulders, bumping over the ridges of his spine. It’s as gentle as all things Kyungsoo-related tend to be, yet it’s both somehow incredibly artificial and impersonal, because it’s cold and metal, and exhilaratingly intimate too, because it’s _Kyungsoo_. It doesn’t help that Baekhyun is beginning to kiss Jongdae’s stomach as the muscles flex under his touch while Kyungsoo sucks marks into his neck, because it’s all so overwhelmingly _much_ it makes Jongdae want to cry.

He doesn’t, of course, but his heart is accelerating in his chest instead, because this is really happening. He doesn’t know what part of it gets to him so badly, the fact that it’s been over 1600 years, or the fact that it’s Baekhyun and Kyungsoo; either way, Jongdae knows it’s going to take a lot of willpower to control himself, to make this all last. This is probably one of the only times they’ll ever have a chance to be together, like this, and Jongdae is keen on making it count.

Baekhyun’s at the waistband of his pants now, tugging at the material with a single finger. “Can I?” He asks, and Jongdae nods, as Baekhyun reaches around to press the button and loosen the morphing material, sliding both the pants and under garments off entirely, leaving Jongdae fully naked and both Kyungsoo and Baekhyun fully clothed. It’s quite the disparity.

“So it _is_ a dick,” Baekhyun mumbles, staring at Jongdae’s nearly fully hard erection, which Jongdae means to ask about but is momentarily distracted by his sheepishness.

“You too,” he blurts, as Kyungsoo breaks away from his neck and Jongdae looks over his shoulder at him, swallowing. “You guys too… clothes...”

Baekhyun laughs breathily, easily obliging as he pulls off the dark blue top, revealing his smooth, golden-tinted, nipple-less chest, with a soft round little tummy and no belly button. (Which is exactly how Jongdae remembers Kuhonians are monotremes and simultaneously never wants to think about that in too much detail ever again.) His tails extend from just above the waistband of his pants which, for Jongdae’s sake, he keeps on the under garments, tilting his head accordingly.

“Like what you see?” Baekhyun teases, as he lifts his long braid and repositions it, tucking back the little strands of loose fly-aways.

“Yeah,” Jongdae breathes out honestly, and Baekhyun blinks, taken aback. Jongdae turns to Kyungsoo then, who is still clothed, hesitating, and says, “If you don’t want to--”

“I do.” Kyungsoo cuts in, breathing steadily. “It’s just…” He trails off. “... Don’t freak out okay? Either of you.”

Slowly but surely, Kyungsoo begins peeling off the layers upon layers of long-sleeved black clothing, evidently purposefully chosen to cover every inch of skin. His body truly is mostly metal, with one arm being metal from the shoulder down, the other only prosthetic from the elbow, but majority of his chest is still intact, save for metal plating running along the sides and down his spine, but all for interfacing purposes, Jongdae’s guessing, gathering by all the plugs and wires. Both of Kyungsoo’s legs, however, are fully metal from hip to toe, covered in carbon-fiber plating, and there’s a glowing red energy core, right above his heart, interlocking with the plates of steel that hold his body together.

“Fucking _awesome_ ,” Jongdae whispers, before he can stop himself, and Kyungsoo just laughs a little sheepishly, still uncomfortable.

“Can’t say that’s the reaction I was expecting,” he admits as, tentatively, Jongdae reaches out and traces all the seams of metal and flesh, the contrasting hardness of steel with the softness of Kyungsoo’s pink skin.

“Well, I wasn’t joking,” Jongdae laughs, a little astonished at the reality of such technology before him. His people could only dream of such a thing… “You’re a cyborg alien space thief, Soo. I don’t think there’s a cooler phrase in the entire common language.”

Kyungsoo laughs, wryly saying, “Thanks.”

“Not to ruin the mood again,” Baekhyun says, as they hesitate in the silence for a second. Jongdae notes the way he doesn't reach forward to touch Kyungsoo, however. “But can I suck you off?”

Baekhyun licks his lips, nibbling on them, looking at Jongdae with darkened eyes, and Jongdae decisively says, “No.”

Baekhyun blinks. “What? What do you mean _no_? Who turns down a blowjob from--” he gestures to himself. “This.”

“Me,” Jongdae answers, and Baekhyun scoffs in offense. “You have _incisors_ , Baekhyun. It would be like shoving my dick into a wood chipper with the risk of it turning on.”

“I wouldn’t use teeth what the _fuck_!!!!” Baekhyun argues, offended at Jongdae questioning his blowjob skills.

“Not taking the risk, sorry~” Jongdae sing-songs childishly, as Kyungsoo just laughs. “I only have one dick and I’m very protective of it. It's the last of its kind, a rare specimen.”

Baekhyun huffs. “Fine.” He says. “See if I ever suck you off.” He mumbles darkly, folding his arms across his chest.

Kyungsoo laughs quietly again, before shuffling forward and saying, “If Baekhyun can’t suck you off, can I?” And the bluntness of it causes Jongdae to blush, face heating up completely at the thought.

“Um. Yeah.” Jongdae answers lamely, unsure of how to handle such blunt advances because just the idea of Kyungsoo with his mouth-- _well_ , shit.

“Oh so _he_ can do it, but when I can do it I’m threatening the family jewels,” Baekhyun scoffs, shaking his head. “Unbelievable.”

“No talking in class,” Jongdae teasing chides, snickering, but then Kyungsoo is tugging him to the edge of the bed, kneeling between his thighs, and he quickly cuts off, swallowing in anticipation.

“Come on teacher,” Kyungsoo says with a smirk, Jongdae’s dick dangerously close to his face and causing one thousand sensations to fire off in a chain reaction throughout his bloodstream. “Keep teaching.”

“Well,” Jongdae starts weakly, voice breaking. “That there is my dick and it’s--” Kyungsoo wraps his mouth around the tip, sucking, and Jongdae tilts his head back, moaning at the suddenness of it. “--Very important to me.” He finishes with squeak.

“Top-tier student, huh?” Baekhyun teases, and Jongdae hisses _shut up_.

“I’d like to see you--” Kyungsoo swirls his tongue around the head once, before running it along the underside and slowly sinking down. “--handle…” a gasp. “... This... “

Baekhyun just smirks, running his fingers along the curve of Jongdae’s adam’s apple as he unabashedly moans when Kyungsoo hollows his cheek, thankful that he’s carefully keeping the metal corner of his lip out of the sensation entirely.

A cold metal hand lands on his thigh, causing Jongdae to flinch, and Kyungsoo pulls back with a mumbled, “Sorry.” He swallows. “It’s hard without… hands.” He admits, which is fair enough. Jongdae can’t deepthroat for shit, so he’d be screwed without hands, really.

“I thought you’ve never…” Baekhyun trails off, having made himself comfortable behind Jongdae, simply kissing his shoulders and enjoying the sight of Kyungsoo between his thighs.

“No, I said I’d never had Drovaryian sex,” Kyungsoo replies. “Not sex.”

Then, without warning, his mouth is back around Jongdae’s dick, sucking along the head before sinking down, and back up, then down a little further than the time before, slowly springing back and forth and opening up his throat until his nose is at the base of Jongdae’s dick, and Jongdae gasps before saying, “Oh holy fuck.”

Baekhyun laughs quietly in his ear, placing a quick kiss to the moles beside it, before asking, “You have another orifice, right? Does it get sexual stimulus?”

Looks like it’s Sexy Biology time, Jongdae thinks with a wince, although at least trying to make sense of it through all the _my dick is down Kyungsoo’s throat_ thoughts prevents him from coming 1000 years too soon.

“Couldn’t find a sexier way to phrase that, could you?”

“Nope.”

Jongdae sighs. “Yeah it-- it does,” Kyungsoo has begun to slow down now, refusing to rush things and simply making Jongdae deal with the raw physical pleasure of it while trying to explain the beauty of a human asshole to a curious Baekhyun. “It um, needs, lubrication and also um. Protection because. Waste orifice.” Of course it wouldn’t be _too_ dirty because he’d had the benefit of showering with water today since they hadn’t been in deep space and could afford to--

Baekhyun giggles, and Jongdae shoots him a dirty look, as Kyungsoo pulls back completely and says, “Do you two ever shut up?”

“I think you already know the answer to that,” Baekhyun teases, grinning. “ _And_ you like it.”

“I plead the fifth,” Kyungsoo deadpans, and all thoughts of law terms being similar flies out of Jongdae’s head when Baekhyun tells him to stand up.

“Why?” He asks, furrowing his eyebrows together.

“Because you won’t let me suck your dick but I can at least use the other end.” He makes a shooing gesture with his hands. “Up up.” Jongdae’s mouth twists but he obliges all the same, scrambling to stand as Baekhyun trails behind him, kneeling opposite Kyungsoo with Jongdae’s body between them.

“You’re okay with this, right?” Baekhyun says, as Jongdae contorts awkwardly to meet his darkened gold eyes, before nodding, about to warn Baekhyun before he says, “Remember your Kuhonian readings,” and then licks around Jongdae’s ass before plunging his tongue in, causing Jongdae to gasp because it’s longer and thinner and _smoother_ than a human tongue, far more dextile as Baekhyun warily moves it in and out, and then around, drawing back and licking circles as Jongdae gasps at the sensation, knees wobbling as he struggles to stand. It’s also in this moment he remembers Kuhonian saliva is filled with antibacterials, and it’s also a lubricant too, he’s guessing, gathering by the smooth glide Baekhyun’s tongue has as he eats Jongdae out.

“There’s a--” Jongdae breathes out, harshly. “--spot in there that--” just as he’s giving yet another sexy biology lesson, Baekhyun’s tongue lands on his prostate, and Jongdae moans at the feeling as a pleasant thrum builds in his limbs, trying not to double over as Baekhyun’s fingers dig into his ass and keep his legs spread apart.

Baekhyun pulls back, wiping saliva off his face with a smirk. “Found it.” He says, and Jongdae is about to berate him for such smugness but then Baekhyun is fucking him with his tongue again, massaging over his prostate, and all bad thoughts swirl down the drain.

Kyungsoo’s hand finds Jongdae’s, and Jongdae desperately latches on to lean on the solid weight, intertwining their fingers.

Then Kyungsoo’s mouth is back around his dick and it’s all downhill from there.

It’s too much, in hindsight, the twin sensations, Kyungsoo’s thick lips around his dick and Baekhyun’s thin tongue eating him out, setting every nerve alight and causing arousal to flood his entire system. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s teamwork shows off, even here, Jongdae thinks distantly, because they’re both always drawing back at the same time when Jongdae gets close, travelling at the same pace and just as determined as the other to pull Jongdae apart piece by piece.

It’s almost torture, in a way, as Jongdae fists his free hand into Kyungsoo’s hair --avoiding the horns-- , separating his other to reach behind him and thread it through Baekhyun’s hair --avoiding the ears-- pulling them closer, openly groaning. His body is so hot it feels like it’s on fire, and he doesn’t know how much more of this he can take.

“Please,” Jongdae chokes out, at some stage, because he’s all for long, drawn out sex but this is _destroying_ him, and Baekhyun and Kyungsoo unanimously --albeit silently-- decide to up their pacing, as Baekhyun’s tongue fucks into Jongdae and Kyungsoo bobs up and down along his dick.

“Fuck, shit, Baekhyun, _Kyungs_ _oo_ \--” Jongdae warns, but it’s all he can manage before he’s coming down the back of Kyungsoo’s throat with a drawn out groan and squeezing his eyes shut as they both ride him through it, Kyungsoo swallowing every last drop and then sucking a little more just to make Jongdae whine at the oversensitivity as Baekhyun draws back and licks his lips, holding Jongdae up as he stumbles on his feet a little, out of breath.

“Well,” Baekhyun says, as Jongdae just lands on the bed with a satisfied _oomph_ and stares at the ceiling after the most mind blowing orgasm of his life. “Glad to see you come.. Come… instead of like, a poof of dust of something.” Despite the sheer jelly his limbs have turned into, Jongdae shoots Baekhyun a dirty look. “What? It’s been 2000 bands. You never know.”

“I hate you,” Jongdae says, resisting the urge to yawn. “I can’t believe I just had sex with you.”

“Oh, you’re done?” Baekhyun asks, and Jongdae nods weakly, far too exhausted for a round two. It _is_ pretty late. “Wow. Humans kind of suck.”

“Shut up,” Kyungsoo reprimands, and Jongdae decides that Kyungsoo is his favourite right now. “Let him rest.” Kyungsoo sits beside Jongdae, running a metal hand through his hair as Jongdae leans into the touch. “He just had sex for the first time in 2000 bands, you’d be exhausted too.” Nope, nevermind, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are equal levels of awful and Jongdae is _suffering_.

Jongdae pushes Kyungsoo’s hands away with a groan as Kyungsoo just laughs softly above him, placing kisses along Jongdae’s forehead. “I hate you both,” he mumbles pathetically, yet is all but helpless as Baekhyun curls beside him and Kyungsoo lies next to him too, both kissing him all over to the point that Jongdae can’t even tell whose mouth is whose, too fucked out to care or try to distinguish. Baekhyun calls him _pretty_ while Kyungsoo calls him _beautiful_ and somewhere along the way, sleepy post-orgasm, Jongdae falls asleep just like that; with Baekhyun and Kyungsoo kissing his every inch of skin, right in between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> humans can actually have three parents too but jongdae doesn’t know that lol. this is what happens when u nap through biology class, jongdae,


	7. Chapter 7

Jongdae wakes up to slow and careful kisses almost as if he’d never slept, forgetting all about the timer above their heads until Baekhyun breaks the silence with, “How long have we got?”

Kyungsoo pulls back from Jongdae’s mouth as Jongdae flutters his eyes open, having not even realised he’d been kissing Kyungsoo to begin with until a metal hand cups his cheek, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones with a soft mechanical click.

“A few periods,” Kyungsoo replies.

“Good,” Baekhyun says. “I want to try something.”

Which is how Jongdae ends up being his science experiment for the morning while Baekhyun tries to make Jongdae come on just his tongue alone --which he does, to the surprise of everyone involved. This somehow dissolves into Jongdae helpless to watch as Baekhyun sits on Kyungsoo’s face while he eats out his cloaca, and the odd satisfaction of smothering Kyungsoo in kisses and touches upon every inch of visible skin --he’s particularly sensitive along his ears-- which only ends when Baekhyun convinces him into letting him play around in his panels, tugging at the wires and plugs and making Kyungsoo overwhelmed because it feels like someone is actually _touching_ him. There’s a distinct mechanical hiss and the lights on the side of Kyungsoo’s forehead blink and flicker, and Baekhyun pulls back with his fingers still digging into Kyungsoo’s thighs, Jongdae halting his assault on Kyungsoo’s ears in case something has gone wrong.

“Did you just--” Baekhyun asks, in awe, smiling incredulously.

“I--” Kyungsoo blinks, startled. “--I think so?”

Baekhyun laughs delightedly, and Jongdae grins at both of them, equally as pleased.

They spend the morning pretending like it’s not one of their last, and somehow, it works. It had been all romantic fun and games for Baekhyun to propose that Jongdae could ever stay with them, but they all know it’s just too unrealistic, as Kyungsoo reminds them that they’re due to meet with Joohyun soon and they get ready in a quiet panic.

Jongdae doesn’t know what to expect from their mysterious contact, who’s bound to give him a fake identity and job for a hefty price, but the tiny little Drovaryian with branching horns staring at them from the doorway of an equally as tiny ship probably isn’t it, tails curling behind her.

“You’re late,” is the first thing Joohyun says, running her eyes up and down Jongdae’s body and giving a raised eyebrow at the hickies on his neck. Sheepishly, Jongdae covers them up with a hand and smiles. “This it?” She asks Kyungsoo, gesturing to Jongdae.

“Yes,” Kyungsoo replies curtly, as Baekhyun and Jongdae just exchange confused eye contact. She beckons them aboard her ship, and the trio hesitantly follow as the bay doors close behind them. Joohyun’s ship is far bigger than the Moonlight, with a wide open space that she leads them into, but Jongdae is mostly confronted by the inxut on one of the cockpit’s chairs, a species he’d only read about in passing but never seen. Long black hair and three glowing green eyes, a single horn in the centre of their head, covered in head to toe with soft, yellow fur.

“Oh,” they say, standing up immediately and smiling. “Hello there.”

“Hi…?” Jongdae returns, confused, as Kyungsoo cuts Joohyun a dark look.

“Oh don’t give me that, _tai’veshk_ , Seulgi is trustworthy.” She pushes at Kyungsoo’s forehead with three fingers, and Kyungsoo backs down, mouth twisting in conflict.

“Tai’veshk?” Jongdae whispers --butchering the foreign syllables, no doubt-- to Baekhyun beside him.

“It means tailless in their mother tongue,” he answers, and Jongdae thinks, _ah_. He’d read all about how the three tails are important heritage and culture to Drovaryians, so for Kyungsoo, to have none, well… it’s not a favourable status.

“Besides, she’s my… helper,” Joohyun decides, as Seulgi gives a fond, mildly apologetic smile and Jongdae thinks that Seulgi probably helps Joohyun the same way he helps Baekhyun and Kyungsoo. Interesting.

From that point onwards she orders Jongdae to stand in the centre of the room as she scans his body and takes a photo, frowning at the readings.

“What… is he?” Joohyun asks Kyungsoo, and Jongdae is once again thrown off by the fact that she apparently refuses to acknowledge anyone else in the room. Maybe she's just a little mistrustful of strangers, Jongdae's beginning to think.

“Does it matter?” Kyungsoo replies, carefully.

“For his ID it might,” Joohyun replies, looking up at Jongdae with a confused tilt to her mouth. “I guess he might… pass as a really heavily modified creth but... you realise it’s risky if anyone asks him about it, right?”

“You’ll come up with something believable,” Kyungsoo replies. “You always do.”

Joohyun _hmph_ s. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” she mumbles, but Jongdae can tell by the curl of her three tails that she’s pleased.

Once Joohyun is all done with the information she needs --which, beyond Jongdae’s DNA and appearance, isn’t really much; the no-questions-asked policy is probably why Kyungsoo trusts her with this so much-- she gives him a rundown of how it’s going to work, the small settling she’ll send him to on the outskirts of the galaxy, where he’ll probably become a farmhand, or something. It’s not exactly the highlife of a space thief, Jongdae thinks, but it’s _safe_ , both for him, and Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, and that’s all that matters. He’ll be fed and kept safe in return for work --no questions asked, courtesy of her contact-- and eventually maybe he’ll be secure enough in his fake identity to travel and move around.

But for now, it’s a starting point: the second thing Joohyun gives Jongdae, is a small holo-card.

“Your ticket,” she explains. “There’s a shuttle tomorrow morning that leaves for X951 at the ninth period. Meet me a period beforehand. A friend of mine will give you a place to stay while I sort out your details.”

Baekhyun speaks up at that for the first time. “I don’t understand, why can’t he just stay with us?”

Joohyun raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “You think it takes a few cycles to form hack the Union’s database and create an entire identity from scratch?” She chuckles, a little condescendingly, in hindsight. “I’m good at what I do, kitty,” Baekhyun bristles, predictably. “And because of that, it will take me _time_. If you want to cart around your illegal friend while you run your little thief show at the same time, then be my guest, but I was under the impression that this was all about keeping him safe as soon as possible.”

Baekhyun growls, low in his throat, but Seulgi smoothly slides between them.

“Joohyun,” she says, placatingly, as Joohyun softens beneath the hand on her forearm. “Play nice.” She turns to Baekhyun with a smile. “How about some tea?”

Seulgi prepares tea for the five of them as they sit around a table that folds out from the kitchen wall, rehashing out details as Joohyun asks Jongdae a bunch of questions about what he wants from his new life and what sort of past he’s willing to come from. It’s best to mix as much truth in with the lies as possible, Joohyun explains, so that the lying becomes easier. Something about that phrase settles deep in Jongdae’s stomach and burns with acidity.

By the time Joohyun says she’s gotten as much from them as she possibly could have, Seulgi leads them out with more polite smiles, but Jongdae is left feeling distinctly underwhelmed all the same, with something foreboding hanging over his head. He stares at the little holo-card in his hands, knowing that it’s all real, but some part of him, well; some part of him refuses to accept it.

“One day.” Jongdae croaks out weekly, because he’d thought maybe it would’ve been a little bit longer than that, but Joohyun is dead set on moving Jongdae away from Baekhyun and Kyungsoo as soon as possible. Days on Naeveria are pretty much the same length as they had been on earth --about two cycles-- but it’s currently nearing the twelfth period, meaning Jongdae has less than 24 hours with Baekhyun and Kyungsoo before they part ways.

Maybe not forever, some part of Jongdae naively thinks, because they can always visit him and maybe eventually he’ll be able to find his own way to visit them (when it’s safer, of course) but... but for now, it feels like forever, because even one cycle without Baekhyun and Kyungsoo would pass by like eternity.

“One day.” Baekhyun agrees equally as solemn, as his hand wraps around Jongdae’s and squeezes. “So let’s make the most of it, right?”

They spend the entirety of the daylight together, wandering around Tak and exploring its streets, enjoying the sunshine together even though they know it’s the last they’ll have for quite some time, the end of the Traveler’s festival. Eventually though, Jongdae grows restless, and practically begs for them to go back to the ship, so he can play nine-three-one with Baekhyun while Kyungsoo watches in silence, quietly suggesting moves to make in Jongdae’s ear as Baekhyun accuses him of playing favourites, only for Jongdae to lean across the holo-board and shut him up with a kiss. Kyungsoo cooks a meal out of what he’d bought at the market place, and they eat it together on Baekhyun’s bed, poking at each other with socked feet as Baekhyun complains about stains and crumbs on his linen. It doesn’t take long for this to dissolve into kissing, and then kissing, and then more kissing, as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo take their time in pulling Jongdae apart piece by piece, and he them, just like the night before but _more_ , somehow, urged on by bravery, accompanied with something in the air that fills Jongdae’s lungs and drowns him, as he becomes increasingly aware that every kiss he leaves along Baekhyun’s skin or Kyungsoo’s mouth may very well be his last.

Jongdae had asked for a reason to stay, and they’re both right here, in front of him --it’s just a pity that protecting himself, protecting _them_ , is a better reason to leave. Jongdae doesn’t know who is after him or what they want or anything, really, but there’s a feeling in his gut that tells him that anyone who stands in their way will be in trouble. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo have already given Jongdae all that the stars have to offer; the least he can give them in return is some peace and quiet, and one less mouth to feed.

Which is why, come Naeverian morning, Jongdae peels himself out from between them, and dresses, mentally apologising for the clothing thievery as Baekhyun frowns in his sleep and makes tiny noises at the empty space Jongdae had left behind. Kyungsoo is merely still and tranquil, robotic eyes open and glowing.

It’s easier, this way, Jongdae thinks, if he doesn’t have to say goodbye.

He opens Kyungsoo’s comm with the 4-digit code and turns off the alarm he’d set for them all to wake up at the sixth period, shoving the few clothes they’d bought him yesterday into an over-the-shoulder bag of cloth and hesitating as he stands at the ship bay doors, opening them and wincing, hoping that neither of them will wake up because of it. Already Jongdae feels a deep hollowness in his chest, eating him from the inside out, but he tries not to dwell on it, heading off to the shuttle station Joohyun had specified. He’s a period early, he knows, but that’s okay, as he finds a bench to sit at and rearrange his thoughts and feelings, fingers wrapping around the necklace at his chest and squeezing. He really is going to miss them both so fucking much, and even if he doesn’t regret forgoing the chance to say goodbye, knowing he wouldn’t have been able to leave if he hadn’t, he does regret losing his chance to say _thank you_.

In a way, though, he’s pretty sure Kyungsoo and Baekhyun already know how grateful he is, in that weird, silent understanding the three of them have.

Jongdae laughs quietly to himself at his own hopelessness, at how much pain he’s inevitably caused himself _and_ them, but he knows it will all heal in time. Someone sits on the bench beside him, and it dips at the weight, as Jongdae flicks a quick glance only to find a masked face staring back at him.

Why wear a mask if they’re not on Cainus? Jongdae thinks, before his eyes widen in realisation and he stands quickly, moving to walk away but another figure blocks his exit, looking down at him.

“No,” Jongdae says, fingers curling around the ring at his neck in panic. He’d been so close, so fucking _close--_ “No no no no no _no_.”

He should scream, or call for help, or _something_ , but it’s early, and there’s no one around. A cloth is placed over his mouth before he can think of anything else to do, his hand falling down, and then it all fades to black.

  
  


 

 

When Baekhyun wakes up, there’s a distinct lack of warmth at his side, replaced by something cool and metal.

Almost immediately he’s opening his eyes blearily, stretching as he sits up, and frowning at the empty space.

“Jongdae?” He calls, figuring that he’s in the bathroom, or something, and making a confused face at the lack of reply. “Jongdae?” He tries, a little louder, to no response, and frantically thinks, _no_.

Picking up his comm from the bedside table, he looks at the lock screen time display in abject horror.

“Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun says immediately, shaking him awake as Kyungsoo groans and asks what’s wrong, rubbing at his eye. “It’s the ninth period already it’s-- Jongdae he--”

“What?” Kyungsoo asks, snapping awake at Baekhyun’s franticness, and looks at the emptiness of the room in confusion. “That’s impossible I set alarms I wouldn’t--” checking his comm, he finds the alarm disabled. Apparently, telling Jongdae his code had been a mistake. “ _Throsh’nar fesk_.” He curses, more or less translating into something a bit like _son of a bitch_.

“We need to go his shuttle might be delayed he could still--” Baekhyun’s breathing slows as Kyungsoo places a hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s go.” He says firmly, no hesitance or laziness about it. If there’s a chance Jongdae is still there, they’re both willing to take it.

They sprint to the station since it’s not too far from the ship dock, arriving slightly out of breath as they attempt to make their way through the morning crowd. It’s hard for Baekhyun to catch onto Jongdae’s scent since it’s been so long since he was here and there are so many different smells and he _can’t_ \--

“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo reassures, a metal hand around his wrist, and that’s all it takes for Baekhyun to calm his breathing and slip into the predatory state, senses heightening as he smells Jongdae on himself and Kyungsoo and follows it through the air.

“This way,” he tells Kyungsoo, as they weave in and out through the crowd, the rest of the world disappearing as Baekhyun focuses on Jongdae and Jongdae alone. The trail leads them to outside the station, still strong enough for Jongdae to be there, _maybe_ , and as Baekhyun runs towards it, Kyungsoo at his heel, he’s disappointed only to find a bench that reeks of Jongdae and also fear, hopelessness,  _loneliness_. The scent of it makes him want to puke.

The trail leads back into the shuttle gate, after that, where Kyungsoo and Baekhyun can’t follow without a ticket, but Baekhyun knows it’s already left --he was naive to think otherwise.

“He’s gone,” Baekhyun says, voice cracking, and even though he’d known it was coming, it still _aches_ inside him, the despair and longing. He was going to miss Jongdae indefinitely --of that, forever, Baekhyun could be sure.

Kyungsoo exhales shakily, face impassive, but it turns to a frown when he spots something on the ground, crouching to tug at the black chord that pokes through from under the bench, eye widening in realisation of the little silver ring that dangles from it.

“I don’t understand,” Kyungsoo says, eyebrows furrowing together as his fingers enclose around the ring. “Why would he leave this behind?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want any memories of us,” Baekhyun suggests lowly, even as the thought of such a thing makes his hearts hurt. Kyungsoo shakes his head.

“He wouldn’t--”

“Well he left without saying goodbye didn’t he?” Baekhyun snaps immediately. “So I don’t exactly fucking think he’s got the number one spot for predictability right around now.”

“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says, softly, with all the gentleness Baekhyun doesn’t need, because it makes him feel bad for the contrasting burn of his anger. “Would you have let Jongdae leave?” He asks, and Baekhyun opens his mouth to retort with a _of course_ , but Kyungsoo cuts him off. “I want an honest answer. Would you have let Jongdae walk away?”

And Baekhyun tries to imagine it now, just… _letting_ it happen, sitting by as another victim as Jongdae would turn his back and leave, never to see his smile, or hear his laugh… never to be looked at like he isn’t just some broken piece, or pathetic criminal, or precious _kitten,_ but as if Baekhyun himself held all the stars in the sky… and, very pointedly, he comes to an answer.

“No,” Baekhyun answers, shoulders slumping. “I wouldn’t have.”

Baekhyun has always been bad at sitting by and letting things just _happen_ , always wanting his own way.

“Neither would I,” Kyungsoo says, smiling tightly, as if it’s amusing in the cruelest of ways. It’s hard for Baekhyun to remember that Kyungsoo treasured Jongdae just as much as Baekhyun had; this affects the both of them. “I think part of Jongdae knew that, and also knew he couldn’t stay, either.”

The truth stings, but it’s the reality of it that hurts the most, because Kyungsoo has a point, and Jongdae is _gone,_ as plain and simple as that.

They head back to the ship in a dejected, heavy silence, and Baekhyun wonders, _what now?_ Jongdae is gone, and all that remains is what there had been before, but more, somehow. It would be stupid for Baekhyun to think that he and Kyungsoo could just go back to what they were, as if the unspoken agreement that they love each other isn’t hanging in the air, but, at the same time, how could they go be anything else, when Jongdae completes them just as much as they complete each other?

Yet above all that, too, something unsettles Baekhyun, sits heavy in his gut. He doesn’t like the fact that Jongdae had torn his necklace off and discarded it to lie in the dirt, because it is, once his anger has cooled off enough to think properly, a decidedly un-Jongdae move. The scent of fear, too, had been natural since Jongdae had been alone, about to start a new chapter of his life in an unknown world, but something about it still settles wrong in Baekhyun’s stomachs, a predator’s instinct.

He just has an innate feeling about all of this, like something is… off. Call it a side effect of his wild side, or something, but it’s the distinct sensation of being watched that’s lingered ever since Cainus, or maybe, in hindsight, long before that. In a way, it makes Baekhyun feel like the prey, which, as a Kuhonian, he doesn’t enjoy.

Not in the slightest.

As Kyungsoo settles into the pilot’s seat, Baekhyun takes the comm panel beside him, already far too acutely aware of all the empty space. He wonders what they’ll do now… pick up another job, go back to their life from before, paying off their bonds and erasing their memories and never ever talking about it --not because they’re bad at communicating, but because it would hurt too much.

An incoming call on Kyungsoo’s comm snaps Baekhyun out of reverie, and he exchanges a confused glance with Kyungsoo before an angry looking Joohyun appears on a slightly blurred holo-screen, frowning at the camera.

“You know I’m really confused about why you would make me go through all that trouble for nothing--” she begins ranting, causing Baekhyun and Kyungsoo to exchange yet another confused look with one another. “--I mean okay I get it, you were attached to your boyfriend or whatever, but I hope you know I still want to be paid for all this work, like!!!!” She makes a frustrated noise. “If you’re going to pull out last second, why even bother doing any of this to begin with!!!”

“What are you talking about?” Kyungsoo snaps, interrupting Joohyun, as she huffs a stray piece of hair that hangs beside her left horn.

“What do you _think_ I’m talking about?” She asks rhetorically, unimpressed. “You and your little boytoy copped out of our deal. What _else_ would I be talking about?”

There’s a moment of silence as the words process through Baekhyun’s brain, and then his eyes widen in realisation once he understands what it means.

“Jongdae,” Kyungsoo breathes out, entire body tense with panic. He and Baekhyun look at each other, mirroring each other’s realisations, and that’s all it takes, really.

“Yes, him,” Joohyun waves her hands. “Who else would I be talking about? I hope you know I still want to be paid for thi--” Kyungsoo ends the call almost abruptly, and immediately starts checking the scanners to switch on the engines, turning on the ship.

A red alert pops up on a holo-screen in front of Kyungsoo’s face.

“What is it?” Baekhyun asks, frantic, as Kyungsoo quickly reads the message with a frown.

“The engines… are malfunctioning…” he says, pressing buttons and flipping through tabs hurriedly. “I’m… I’m not sure what’s wrong with them.”

Baekhyun’s skin crawls, but he ignores it.

“I’ll check the rocket propellers,” he decides, opening up the bay doors. It wouldn’t be the first time something had created a plug in the fuel cell or punctured a leak, but it’s certainly the worst timing for it. “You check the engine.”

Baekhyun sprints out to check what might be wrong, internally cursing over and over because the ship just _had_ to have a malfunction now, didn’t it? Right when Jongdae is… god, who even knows, but he’s in trouble, no doubt, and Baekhyun and Kyungsoo have to save him. They just have to. Wasn’t all this meant to protect him, in the end? Why the fuck did it all have to come crumbling down right when he was about to--

Baekhyun reaches into the blasters, pulling out a small, round device he easily recognises as a simple EMP shield, which will block off any signal to the propellers that tries to switch them on. Knowing that this isn’t exactly the sort of thing that just _falls_ into a ship’s tail end, Baekhyun tenses, ears flicking when feet behind him crunch on the grass.

Then, there’s the distinct press of a blaster against the back of his neck, and Baekhyun thinks, _you’ve got to be fucking kidding me_.

“Don’t move.” An oddly familiar voice orders, but Baekhyun turns around anyway, slowly, with his hands raised above his head.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he blurts.

Sehun just stares back at him, unblinking. “Baekhyun?”

  
  


 

 

(As Jongdae wakes up, it’s to a blurry image of shapes he can’t discern, a shadow moving between them. It’s because of the glass, he thinks, fogged over and cold to the touch.

“This is just a dream,” he mutters, when he sees the shape of his hand, strangely warped and distorted as it swipes along the glass so he can look through it. This time, however, Jongdae doesn’t wake up.

It’s Jongdeok again, but like all dream things, his face is… wrong, strange, like Jongdae _knows_ it’s him but to actually look closer at him there are too many details wrong. It makes Jongdae’s head hurt, and it causes the dream to… loosen, somehow, as his conscious becomes too aware of it. Something pastel green and vaguely human shaped appears in the blink of an eye as his conscious shift, but then, just like that, it’s gone. Jongdae tries not to think about it too much, because this dream is different from the others, and he’s curious as to why --he doesn’t want to wake up yet.

“What are you doing?” Someone asks, a voice light, like a child’s, as Jongdae peers down from the glass and sees his younger self staring back up at him, head tilted. He couldn’t be much older than thirteen, still dressed in camping gear with a backpack over his shoulders. Jongdae moves to reach him, but he’s stuck, and it’s the pod, Jongdae realises, the one he’d first woken up in, he’s _trapped inside it_.

“I don’t know,” Jongdae answers honestly, as his younger self just says, _huh_ , and turns around, watching Jongdeok move from bench to bench in his laboratory.

“Jongdeok-hyung is very busy,” mini-Jongdae notes, with that same, inhuman, unchild-like detachment. “What is he doing?”

Jongdae presses on the glass, but it doesn’t budge, and there’s no form of latch or switch inside it. The movement of his limbs is heavy, unnatural, not only because of all the weird blue jelly but also because, well, _dream._

“I’m not sure,” he tells himself. “Preparing to freeze me for eternity, I guess.”

Jongdeok always had been the brains in the family. And the looks.

Jongdae’s just the heart… or something.

“I could stop him, if you want,” mini-Jongdae offers, shrugging. “But do you want me to?”

“If you stop him,” Jongdae begins. “What happens then?” Jongdae never wakes up on Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s ship, never experiences the future or the entirety of outer space, lives his life to the best he can with his friends and his family back _home_ only for blackblood to destroy him within a year, deteriorate his body until it’s not even recognisable enough for an open casket.

“I dunno,” mini-Jongdae answers honestly. “I mean, it’s just a dream, right?”

“I guess so.” Jongdae answers noncommittally, and the glass begins to fog up again, but this time, as he moves to clear it, it doesn’t work, growing more frustrated by the second as the condensation refuses to move before it finally does, but now mini-Jongdae, and Jongdeok’s blurry figure, and his lab at the hospital, it’s all gone, replaced instead by a curious looking Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, who peer at the glass in confusion. No, not the glass, they can’t even _see_ the pod, merely trace the perimeter of it as Kyungsoo’s hand comes to rest on an invisible wall surrounding it.

“If you want to go back home,” mini-Jongdae says again, from over Jongdae’s shoulder, and then the pod, and Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, it’s all gone, Jongdae instead staring at his younger self from across his mother’s dining room table when he looks over his shoulder to follow the sound of his voice. “You can.”

Jongdae shakes his head. “Home is gone,” he tells himself. “This one, anyway.” He runs a hand over the cedarwood, but there’s no sensation beneath his palm. He glances over his shoulder, to the kitchen door, pointing to where Baekhyun and Kyungsoo stand --not in the kitchen, of course, but in the scene from before, still glancing out at some invisible wall Jongdae can’t discern. “I have a new home now.”

Mini-Jongdae has moved to beside Jongdae in the blink of an eye, watching Baekhyun and Kyungsoo impassively.

“It wasn’t meant to be this way, you know,” he starts, as black blood begins to trickle down from the corner of his mouth, his ears, his eyes. He doesn’t speak with Jongdae’s voice, but with Jongdeok’s instead. “You should have woken up sooner. Something went wrong.”

“I know,” Jongdae replies, and steps towards the kitchen, allowing his mother’s dining room to wash away, and leaving his younger self to stand and bleed.)

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever Jongdae awakens to, it hurts his eyes, and his throat is raw and painful, too, blinking into all the white and wincing. It takes a few seconds for his memories to catch up to the rest of him, and then he’s snapping awake, jolting in his restraints, only to glance down in abject horror because, _restraints._

Electric cuffs around his ankles, glowing blue and humming in the silence. It’s difficult for Jongdae to make out where he is when his eyes are so sensitive, the sight still blurry, but it appears to be a three-walled room of glass of some sort, with the back wall being a fluorescent white. Jongdae squints into it, shading his eyes with his hand, and looks down at his body because he’s naked. Great.

Well, kind of naked, and kind of not, too, because there are strange pieces of jewelry around his arms and legs and neck, in decadent golds and silver, weighing down his limbs. The only thing that gives him even the slightest piece of modesty is the sheer piece of turquoise cloth covering Jongdae’s dick, and very pointedly, he thinks, _fantastic_.

The room --or should Jongdae say _cell_ \-- is empty save for a mattress in the corner, and a tiny tin foil box that’s steaming with what Jongdae assumes to be food.

“Don’t eat that,” a voice warns, and Jongdae blinks as his eyes come into focus, and he notices somebody else in the cell adjacent to his, standing by the glass. “Sometimes it’s drugged, sometimes it’s not, but it’s better not to risk it. Especially at the start.”

Jongdae steps towards the stranger, and his fingers press against the glass, flinching when he faces an electric shock because of it.

“Where am I?” He asks the alien, of a species Jongdae doesn’t recognise in the slightest. Soft, pastel-green skin littered with scales and a horn sticking out of both their nose and forehead, a frilled web surrounding their neck, three pairs of arms hanging by their side. Like Jongdae, they’ve been decorated in all sorts of strange jewels and bands of metal, but their skin is also painted with swirling patterns of flowers and vines, running across their face. Jongdae assumes he must have a similar state, but there’s no way to see his reflection when the glass is so clear. “What is this place?”

“A lot of things,” the stranger answers. “A museum, a showcase, an auction house, a zoo.” He smiles a twisted thing, crooked around the edges. “Mostly though, I’d just call it a prison.” Jongdae steps back, blood running cold, and the alien just laughs softly. “They won’t hurt you, don’t worry. You’re too precious for that.”

“Precious?” Jongdae repeats. “What do you--” he swallows. “What do you mean?”

“You understand how much you’re worth, right?” The stranger asks, skeptical, black eyes narrowed. Jongdae doubts they’re talking about emotional worth or pricelessness. “This is a collector’s house for _exotic items_.” They tap the collar around their neck, and Jongdae reaches up to feel for his own, seeing the two lines of heartbeats displayed on the monitor of the heavy black item for the other alien. “A collection house. A cargo bay, for those who are looking to buy… rarities.”

“Rarities like us,” Jongdae says, in realisation, and wonders just exactly _who_ this stranger is. “So what? They’re going to sell me? Then what? Taxidermy?”

The alien laughs bitterly, but then shrugs. “I don’t know,” they reply. “I guess it depends on who’s buying you, doesn’t it? Or who’s already bought you, I’m not sure. You haven’t been here very long.”

“Who are you?” Jongdae asks, and then, crudely, “And… and _what_ are you?”

“My common name is Junmyeon,” Junmyeon replies. “And I’m Elidrian.”

There had been a brief period --keyword: _brief_ \-- where Jongdae’s innate curiosity had lingered on Chanyeol’s words of the Terran experience not being uncommon. There had been a long list of articles and reports about exploding stars and collapsing planets, the Union being ‘too late’ to save them. Eldria had been at the very top, along with phrases like _less than a hundred remain_ , although Jongdae doesn’t know the precise details, having been too nauseous to look at the holo-screen any further than that.

“And you’re Kim Jongdae,” Junmyeon says, which startles Jongdae, causing him to look at Junmyeon in confusion. “Terran… or should I say human? I’m not sure, it doesn’t seem like you’ve made your mind up about it either.” Junmyeon makes a noise in assessment. “Makes sense that you’re so valuable to them if you’re really the last of your kind… guess you have your brother to thank for that, huh?”

“How do you--” Jongdae starts, horrified, but then there’s the sounds of a door opening, and two figures walk through at the end of the corridor where the glass cells sit. One a tall snociel, wearing a uniform of some sort that Jongdae can’t make out from this distance, the other a stout, ugly-looking fleudrian, dressed in over-extravagant clothing of far too bright colours and rich fabrics.

“J̮k̜̱̭̩̝na̪̪̦̭̮͇d̦̱͙̫ͅm͉̘̩̖̟̹?” The snociel asks, walking up to Jongdae and peering at him through the glass.

 

She’s not actually there, though, Jongdae realises, she’s just a hologram, flickering and translucent, displayed from the fleudrian’s comm.

“F̗̩͖͉̱̲ͅi̲̣̤o̫j͚̻ͅk͈͖s͍̳̻̥̹̯d̖,” the fleudrian promptly replies. “f̣̟͔̠̙s̼̲͈̺̟j̫̲̬̭̣̭ͅd̩̭k͚͉͓͕̰ͅ ̬͙j̬̞͓͍̱̻k͈͙̺͔̝͎h̩̤͙̱̱̖ͅd̫̼͇̹f͓̲̰̭̱̰ ̻̣̙a̟;̘͓s̮l̺̱d̰̲͉̞̙͉̩k̫̘͍͍̪̘.”

 

The snociel hums in assessment, and Jongdae gives her the darkest scowl he can muster, turning to Junmyeon.

“What are they saying?” Jongdae snaps. “Do you know what language it is?”

“Common, of course,” Junmyeon answers, but that doesn’t make sense. “Haven’t you realised we’ve been speaking Korean for the past ten minutes?”

“Korean?” Jongdae parrots, and then becomes aware of the shapes his mouth makes, the sounds that form. He’d been speaking Korean this whole time, and hadn’t even realised. “But how that’s--” the UTC prevented Jongdae from speaking _any_ language other than common, so why--

“Who would want a pet that talks and understands them?” Junmyeon asks rhetorically. “Otherwise that would just be a slave, wouldn’t it? It’s easier to control you if you don’t understand what’s happening.”

Eyes widening in realisation, Jongdae’s fingers move to the back of his neck, where the small indent above his spine is gone, replaced by the familiar roughness of a scab.

“No,” Jongdae says. “ _No_.” He shakes his head, trying to calm his breathing. “How can you understand me?” He asks Junmyeon, as the snociel walks around the outskirts of his cell in assessment. “I don’t--”

“We’re communicating via brainwaves, Jongdae, not actual speech,” Junmyeon answers, lazily sitting in the corner of his cell with a hand over one knee as he watches the fleudrian with scorn plain on his face. “Your human mind just doesn’t quite comprehend that.”

“ _What_.” Jongdae says, because that’s about all he has to offer right around now, far too confused and far too unnerved about the whole, being imprisoned thing. Junmyeon just shrugs.

“I can transmit electrical pulses at the same frequency of your brain,” Junmyeon taps the horn on his nose pointedly. “I can also read your own, obviously.” At this, his neck frill shivers slightly, as if to prove a point. “You have very strange dreams, you realise that, right?”

Blood freezing in his veins, Jongdae growls, “Get out of my head.”

“People are always so _touchy_ about their heads,” Junmyeon notes, wryly amused. “But you’re the one that let me in.” He watches the snociel disinterestedly, which is when Jongdae glances down and sees the symbol embroidered to her breast pocket. An infinity sign --the symbol of the Union. “Besides, don’t you want to know what they’re saying?”

“What?” Jongdae snaps. “What are they saying?”

“F̙j̪̙͚͔ͅs̼ḏ͙͚͈͚͇,” the fleudrian says. ̗̯”Hd̩̘͉̥ͅs̙̲̙̮f̠s̟͓̬k̼̬͕̜ͅd͇̪̹͓ͅn̙͈̫̝̜͕ ̳̬̦̻̹f̹͔͇͚js̮͉͓n͈̘͍d̝͚͉̬͕f̠.”

 

“So,” Junmyeon translates. “About that payment.” The snociel speaks, and Junmyeon copies.

“Relax,” he mimics. “You’ll have your money once the grant gets through the board, and the specimen is delivered to the lab on Cyrillia 5. At least the specimen is in fine shape, but…” she gives Jongdae a sideways look; Junmyeon pauses accordingly. “... the decorations are a bit much.”

“My apologies,” the fleudrian replies. “Habit.” His grotesque mouth forms what Jongdae supposes is a _smile_. “How long do you think the transfer will take?”

“A few cycles, nothing more. You won’t be holding it here long, don’t worry.”

“Excellent,” the fleudrian replies, and then gestures to the door for them to exit, sliding shut behind them.

“Fuck,” Jongdae says. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

“The Union, huh?” Junmyeon muses, eyes still glued to the door. “I wonder what they want with you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jongdae says, oddly determined now, in spite of everything, disgusted with these people and the fact that they can just _cage_ actual real sentient beings like pretty birds to be sold off and told to _sing_. “I’m getting the fuck out of here before I can find out.”

Diligently, Jongdae moves to the back wall, observing the panels as Junmyeon just rolls his eyes.

“It’s a prison, Jongdae, not a play pen,” he says. “If there was a way out, then I think I’d know about it.”

“So what?” Jongdae snaps. “You’d rather just give up? Sit around here and wait for someone to buy you?”

“What other choice do we have?” Junmyeon argues, voice going low. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Mr. Observant, but we’re on a spaceship,” he gestures to a small device in the centre of the ceiling of the corridor, which Jongdae recognises as an artificial-gravity inducer. “Not some random planet. Even if you _did_ escape, you’d have nowhere to go but the escape pods, and they’d be counting on it.”

Shit, Jongdae hadn’t even realised. “Fuck,” he exhales, sliding down the back wall and pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to steady his heartbeat. What else could he do? Junmyeon was right, and it makes Jongdae feel completely helpless, hopeless, sinking into despair. He hates being so weak and vulnerable, and he hates that there’s nothing he can do about it.

Except.

“Baekhyun and Kyungsoo will come for me,” Jongdae says, slowly, as the realisation dawns on him. “They’ll save me. Us.”

“What? Your boyfriends?” Junmyeon laughs cruelly, genuinely amused. “No offense, but thanks to you they probably just think you’re on X951 by now without having said goodbye --which, for the record, wasn’t romantic or brave. It was just kind of tacky and a dick move.”

Jongdae wishes they weren’t in separate cells right now, so he could _punch_ Junmyeon.

“They’ll realise,” Jongdae says, jaw set, because he refuses to be swayed by Junmyeon’s ever-constant negativity. “They have to.”

“Whatever you say, Jongdae,” Junmyeon replies, growing disinterested, and Jongdae just squeezes his eyes shut, to steady himself, calm his breathing. It’s been a long time since Jongdae has prayed --having long since abandoned religion in the face of his illness, finding his old god mocking and cruel, much to the disappointment of his parents-- but, seeing nothing else left to do, he clasps his hands together.

 _Please_ , Jongdae thinks, knowing Junmyeon can hear him and simultaneously not giving a fuck. _Please._


	8. Chapter 8

“Look,” Baekhyun says, as Sehun’s gnarled fingers tighten around the trigger. “While I’m ecstatic to be reunited right now, can this wait?”

“You’re the Moonlighters,” Sehun exhales, completely ignoring Baekhyun altogether, which is just great, really.

“Is that what they’re calling us?” Baekhyun asks, momentarily distracted. “Really? Couldn’t we be called something cooler?”

“I told you so!!!” A snociel shouts the moment she sees Baekhyun, as she and the Drovaryian walk out of the ship with a similarly positioned Kyungsoo a few steps in front of them, gun against his back and everything. “I knew him being Kuhonian wasn’t a coincidence!!!!!”

“You were supposed to be a two-man crew,” Sehun mumbles, staring at Baekhyun in shock.

“We _are_ ,” Baekhyun answers. “It’s complicated, but I’ll happily tell you all about it if you stop pointing a blaster at my head.” Set to stun or not, those bitches hurt.

“Nice try,” Sehun says wryly. “But I’ve witnessed plenty just how slippery you two can get.”

“You followed us,” Kyungsoo notes, in realisation. “On Cainus.”

“And you got away,” Sehun replies calmly. “But not this time.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Baekhyun snaps. “Sehun, I’m all happy for you to ship us off to Alcazar and claim your bounty, but can you do it after we save Jongdae?”

Sehun wavers, for the splittest of micro-periods. “What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you noticed our trio’s down to two?” Baekhyun asks, raising an eyebrow. “Jongdae was kidnapped, Sehun, and we have to get him back.” Darkly, he mutters, “You know what he is.”

“You’re lying,” Sehun counters, but his face seems conflicted. “He’s just… hiding, or something. He’s just an escape for you.”

“Why would I lie about this?” Baekhyun asks, as Kyungsoo just remains silent and impassive beside him, undoubtedly looking for their opening to escape. His job is simply to keep them distracted, even if it is with the truth, Baekhyun supposes. “You weren’t the only people who followed us to Cainus,” and, judging by the look on Sehun’s face… “... And you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I assumed it was just other bounty hunters…” he says, shoulders shirking.

“It was,” Baekhyun intercepts. “Just not ones from the Union.”

Because in reality, there’s only _one_ person in the entire galaxy who’s going to be searching for Jongdae this hard, and it’s their buyer, whoever they are. It’s not like Jongdae’s existence is broadcasted across the galaxy --or maybe, somehow, it has been-- either way; the only person who knows Baekhyun and Kyungsoo even had him is their buyer, and they're the only one who’d seemed frantic enough to want him back, too.

“Jongdae is in danger,” Kyungsoo says shortly. “We have to help him.”

Sehun is weirdly silent, and the snociel groans. “You aren’t seriously considering this, are you?” She asks. “You know they’ll just get away. We need that money, Sehun.”

“Jongdae was never a part of our crew,” Baekhyun tries, because Sehun is actually _cracking_. God bless Jongdae’s kindness and sheer lovability, in times like these. Either way, his desperation is beginning to leak through his composure, because the longer they waste time on this, the farther away Jongdae gets. “You have to realise that.”

Sehun pulls a face, and the Drovaryian says, “You can’t-- _Sehun_.” The snociel bites her lip, while the Drovaryain makes frantic hand gestures. “Money!!!”

Sehun lowers the gun, and shakes his head.

“You don’t get it Jongin,” he tells the Drovaryian. “Jongdae is in danger. I can’t just sit back knowing that.” He exhales, the vines curling from his arms withering slightly. “He’s the only one of his kind in the entire universe. We can’t leave him alone more than he already is.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” the snociel mumbles in defeat, sighing as she lowers her blaster. “What?” She asks, when Jongin gives her a strange look. “It’s Sehun’s call. It always is. ” That’s how being the lead dog works, or so Baekhyun is told. “It’s not my fault he always has such a hero complex, especially for cute boys.”

“But your ship is too damaged to fly, and five people won’t fit on it,” Sehun continues, ignoring Yerim altogether as Baekhyun just blinks at him, impassive. “So we can take Zephyr instead.”

Jongin grins at that, as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo exchange wary eye contact. It appears Sehun isn’t giving up on the whole catching-criminals thing, but that’s a bridge they’ll have to cross once they get to it. As long as Jongdae is safe, Baekhyun can rot away in prison comfortably.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Baekhyun asks, impatient and antsy, growing more anxious by the second. Sehun frowns at him, before mentioning that their ship is this way, and Baekhyun and Kyungsoo exchange a glance before following, not failing to notice the way the snociel still has a finger on the trigger of her blaster.

  


 

 

 

The dogs’ ship is far bigger than the Moonlight, but all the empty space doesn’t help Kyungsoo’s body, which is still torn in some half-and-half between fight or flight. He doesn’t trust the bounty hunters, and they don’t trust him, either, but they’re not letting Baekhyun and Kyungsoo go anytime soon, and it’s not like they could escape even if they wanted to with the way their engine had been damaged. (Kyungsoo isn’t quite sure as to how Yerim and Jongin got aboard their ship, and at this stage, he’s too afraid to ask.)

The Lanairan --Sehun-- settles into the pilot’s seat, before turning to Kyungsoo and saying, “Well, where is he?”

And that’s… a very good question.

“Uhhhhhhhh,” Baekhyun answers, and Jongin groans.

“You don’t even _know_?”

“We have a vague idea!” Baekhyun counters, turning to Kyungsoo. “Right?”

That was debatable.

“This is ridiculous,” Jongin says, shaking his head. “How can you expect us to save someone if you don’t even know where he is? I say we should just head straight to Alcazar. That’ll save time.”

Sehun rolls his glowing eyes at the same time Baekhyun subtly rolls his. Kyungsoo’s lips twitch as he thinks, _classic dogs_.

“Cyrillia 5,” Kyungsoo speaks up, causing Jongin to look at him. Kyungsoo has always hated being around other Drovaryians --or, at the very least, ones he doesn’t know-- especially when _tai’veshk_ isn’t said with the fondness that Joohyun and Lu Han deliver it with, but the pity he’d purposefully left behind on Drovarys. “That’s where they wanted Jongdae.” And Kyungsoo will bet half his body that that’s _still_ where they want him.

“But we’ll be looking for a ship,” Baekhyun adds. “They couldn’t have possibly gotten there yet.”

“Well, how do you hope to catch up?” Yerim pipes up, eyebrow raised as red eyes judge Kyungsoo carefully. “They have over half a cycle’s head start.”

That was… a very good point, and definitely a problem.

“Open a star map,” Kyungsoo suggests, which Jongin obliges to, reluctantly once Sehun repeats the order, the 3D map displaying on top the centre console, tiny holo-planets and stars rotating quietly. “Assuming they hit hyperspace as soon as they could,” Kyungsoo starts, examining the map carefully, and pointing to the deadzone where hyper-speed is allowed. “With more than a 6 period headstart, taking the shortest route to Cyrillia 5… where would they be by now?”

“Here at best,” Yerim says, without even calculating a thing or consulting the computer. Kyungsoo looks at her confusion, following the line of her finger, and then back to her face with the same confusion. “What? You asked. You can trust my calculations.”

Well that’s wholly terrifying. Anyway.

“So then we cut through here,” Kyungsoo says, drawing a line through a forbidden zone, riddled with collapsed stars and belts of debris.

“And star-weave?” Yerim counters, looking at Kyungsoo with bewilderment. “Are you crazy? I’m not risking my life for _you_ or Jongdae. And I actually like Jongdae.”

“How else do you expect us to catch up?” Kyungsoo asks, irritated, as Yerim considers the map with a hum.

Baekhyun, Sehun, and Jongin seem entirely speechless, watching the exchange as their heads move back and forth between the two, as if watching a ballgame.

“Here,” Yerim says, and points to the part of the map where a whole group of routes through the galaxy converge, suggested channels where hyperspace is allowed, to prevent collision into asteroids and gravity orbits and other unsavoury things, all conjoining into a single intersection a few cycle’s travel away. “They won’t exactly be doing any risky piloting since they have no reason to, especially if they’ve got precious, illegal cargo. They won’t be wanting to take any risks or draw attention to themselves, either.” She folds all four of her arms with a satisfied smile. “They’ll have to exit out of hyperspace for a period or two to get through this quadrant, but we can just stay in it.”

Kyungsoo’s eye widens at Yerim’s implication, and he says, “Isn’t that _more_ dangerous than star-weaving?” A slang term for the act of dodging gravitational orbits in forbidden zones, a task left only to the most crazy of risk takers and foolish adrenaline seekers --but not something Kyungsoo is unfamiliar with, in all his years of thieving.

“Well, for one, we won’t risk being swallowed by a black hole, splitting reality, getting barbecued by horizon radiation, and being crushed by a force strong enough to swallow light itself.” Okay, she makes a convincing point there. “Second of all, hyperspace through a convergence point isn’t very difficult if you’ve handled it before, you just need to know how to dodge.”

Yeah, at the _speed of light_.

“Sehun can do it,” Yerim continues explaining. “He’s done it before.”

Sehun looks nervous under so much scrutiny --especially Baekhyun’s evident incredulousness-- as the tiny tendril of vines shirk up sheepishly.

“If you stick to the outskirts and scan ahead of time-- it’s very doable, yeah.” He says, lamely.

“Then that only leaves one problem,” Jongin cuts in, as Yerim looks at him with a frown. “We don’t know what ship we’re looking for.”

Kyungsoo opens his mouth, closes it.

Well. Shit.

Kyungsoo doesn’t _know_ anything about who their buyer might've have hired beyond the fact that they've taken Jongdae.

But he does know someone who might.

Baekhyun comes to same conclusion simultaneously as he looks at Kyungsoo and pulls a face.

“No,” Kyungsoo sighs. “But I can find out.”

Pointedly, he flips open the panel on his arm which is wirelessly linked to his comm, and hits _call_.

The holo-screen flickers in mid-air, as Sehun and others stare at him curiously from behind its slight translucence, while Baekhyun moves beside him and simply sighs.

“Kyungsoo?” Lu Han asks, and it’s obvious by the furrow between his eyebrows that he still hasn’t quite forgiven Kyungsoo for, well, everything. Lu Han always has been good at holding a grudge, but usually his anger isn’t much more than momentary. “What do you want?”

“It’s Jongdae,” Kyungsoo says. “He was stolen.” A poor choice of words, in hindsight. “... Again.”

“What?” Lu Han asks, furrowing his eyebrows together. They hadn’t spoken once since Kyungsoo had left, back on Aelia, and while it’s not like they’re the most chatty of families (or coworkers), well… Kyungsoo now maybe felt a little bad about it. But not too much, because it’s Lu Han. “What do you mean _stolen_? By who?”

“Who do you think?” Baekhyun asks, taking up that passive-aggressive tone he saves for Lu Han and Lu Han alone. With everything between them that’s happened, what Kyungsoo had once found bratty and over-dramatic he finds… oddly touching (while still slightly bratty and over-dramatic.) “The person who wanted him in the first place.” Their buyer had made his threat loud and clear, after all.

“Let me get this straight,” Lu Han starts, and there’s this _simmer_ in his voice, like a little bubbling pot of anger that’s about to boil over. “You pulled out of a ten million credit job--” Jongin’s jaw _drops_ behind the screen. “--pissed off one of my best clients, only to practically hand over what you were supposed to give him anyway, without earning a single credit.”

“More or less,” Kyungsoo offhandedly replies, after far too much silence. All three of Lu Han’s eyes twitch, but then he just sighs a long, drawn out thing that causes the microphone to crackle.

“And why are you telling me this?” He asks eventually, beyond irritated, rubbing at his temples.

“Because we’re going to get him back,” Kyungsoo explains, which Lu Han groans at, but Kyungsoo pointedly ignores all of that in favour of continuing. “And we need help knowing what we’re looking for.”

“You need to know the ship you’re hunting,” Lu Han translates, as Kyungsoo warily nods, listening to the static as he sighs all over again. There’s a split moment where Lu Han looks torn between hanging up and cussing Kyungsoo out, but then, again, he just sighs. “I can help you, but it will take some time for me to find out. Bear with me, okay? I only vaguely know the identity of the buyer, I can’t give you more about who they've hired until I do a little digging.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo says, relaxing, slightly, because maybe not all is as lost as he’d thought it might be. “Thank you. I owe you one.”

“You owe me a _lot_ more than one,” Lu Han mumbles, but then the panel closes with a soft click, and Kyungsoo stands in silence in the cockpit of Sehun’s ship.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Baekhyun starts, as Kyungsoo swallows just to stop his mouth from feeling so dry. “Let’s go catch these bastards and save Jongdae.”

 _We’re coming_ , Kyungsoo thinks, knowing Jongdae can’t hear him but naively hoping he might, anyway. Just in case.

  


 

 

 

(Jongdae knows he’s dreaming the moment he takes in his surroundings, the grass by his feet, the sun on his face, the warmth that surrounds him but the lack of sensation. He’s standing in a park field, and he’s watching himself cradle a bird with a broken wing in his fingers, his brother hovering over him gently.

“Careful,” Jongdeok chastises, peeling Jongdae’s fingers back so he doesn’t harm the bird. “It’s already hurt. You don’t need to hold onto it like that.”

The dream, memory, whatever it is, blurs, and Jongdae feels the way something pushes its way into his mind, grimacing at the invasion of privacy, at how baring it is.

“Sorry,” Junmyeon apologises, lamely. “That happens once you become aware of it.”

Jongdae shudders at the intrusion, and turns to Junmyeon with a frown, just how _sharp_ his figure is in the haziness of the dream. The world twists, contorting, and Junmyeon loses his balance.

“ _Careful_ ,” he hisses, as Jongdae’s consciousness begins to stir, stumbling on his feet. “Just pretend I’m not even here.”

“Easier said than done,” Jongdae mumbles, and watches as the bird comes alive in his hands and _ah_ , maybe this isn’t a memory after all, turning quickly into a mouse with no repercussions. He can’t even claim it to be a bizarre thing for a bird to do, because within a dream, it seems just as normal as always. “Didn’t I tell you to stay out of my head?”

“It’s not--” Junmyeon starts, and then frowns. He’s different here, somehow, softer, almost, without the cruel patterns painted onto his face, the overtly decadent jewels and clothes, intent on making him look appealing _,_ like a pretty bird of paradise. “--it’s not… by choice.”

“What do you mean?” Jongdae asks, tilting his head, as the park they stand in shifts to a veterinary clinic. He remembers just how determined Jongdeok had been to save that bird --even if it’s a mouse here, for some reason-- and the vet had only said that it would simply die. Jongdeok never had been any good at letting things go.

“Well, we’re-- connected, on the same frequency,” Junmyeon starts to explain. “Think of it like an instinctive reflex for our minds to conjoin. It takes willpower for me to _not_ listen to your thoughts, and I can’t do that if I’m asleep.”

“We weren’t drugged, were we?” Jongdae asks, beginning to panic as the dream world shifts as his consciousness stirs in fear.

“No,” Junmyeon says, placating. “Just exhausted.” He smiles drily, and it’s that hard line back again, jarring with the blurriness of the landscape. “I guess being imprisoned does that to you.”

Jongdae had to agree with that, but being asleep made his recollection of events hazy and not quite there; Junmyeon obviously had a better grasp on this lucid dreaming stuff, or maybe that’s just a side-effect of being Elidrian.

The mouse walks across the ceiling, and Jongdae watches as himself, Jongdeok, and the vet --who is, for some reason, one of his high school teachers-- try to catch it.

“I don’t want to wake up,” Jongdae admits, watching the rodent scuttle across the ceiling. Why is it that sometimes dreams are third person, and sometimes they’re not? The landscape warps again, and Junmyeon stumbles to stay on his feet. “But I’m sick of dreaming, too.”

Junmyeon hums in acknowledgement, watching as Jongdeok shields Jongdae as if a the ceiling is collapsing. Ah, the dramaticness of dreams.

“He loved you a lot, didn’t he?” Junmyeon asks. “Enough to save you.”

“Jongdeok-hyung was always over-protective,” Jongdae answers, continuing to follow the mouse with his eyes, unable to look away. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Once upon a time,” Junmyeon answers wryly, but Jongdae’s sluggish mind struggles to make sense of the distant look on his face, or the way he folds his arms across his chest. Oh, right. Extinct.

“I’m sorry,” Jongdae answers, as the scene blinks away entirely, leaving only a young Jongdae curled up on the floor with a mouse by his feet. No more Jongdeok, no more vet, and then, no more mouse. “At least you and I have that in common.”)

 

 

 

 

 

As Jongdae wakes up, squinting into the bright light, he notices Junmyeon stirring similarly in the cell across from him, offering a small, hesitant smile. Jongdae’s head feels like fog and smoke and mirrors, and he can’t make sense of any of it, the details of the dream slipping away from him the more in touch with reality he becomes. It’s only made worse by the fact that he’s hungry, and thirsty, his muscles sore and his heart pounding. He’d been avoiding the food per Junmyeon’s discretion, but he can’t help but drink the water, knowing that whatever they lace through it makes him weak, _helpless_. Jongdae doesn’t know how long he’s been here --days? Hours? Weeks? Cycles? Periods? Loops?-- and he’s not sure how he can tell, either. Time stretches and warps between hallucinations and dreams, and the longer it lasts, the more trouble Jongdae has discerning which is which.

It’s torture, above all else, plain cruelty. Sometimes strange guards come to check on the cells, other times, the fleudrian walks through with other buyers, who look at Junmyeon and Jongdae with curiosity before moving onto some of the other cells in the adjacent rooms, or the ones around the bending corridor that Jongdae can’t see.

The thin mattress does nothing for his aching body, but Jongdae sits up with a wince, nonetheless, knowing he’s near the precipice of breaking but refusing to let it happen. Something wet and mucus-y is stuck in his throat, and Jongdae coughs, and coughs, and keeps coughing to get it out, until a wad of black, sticky blood ends up in the palm of his hand.

Because amongst everything, Jongdae had almost forgotten all about this, about the tiny little nanobot pills he’s meant to take every three cycles, the way Chanyeol had said _don’t skip a single one_. Jongdae had never been cured, only on the road to recovery, and between the blatantly inhumane treatment and lack of medicine, his body is quickly tumbling back into states of decay, and he can feel the way blackblood clogs his airways.

Now would be a very good time for Baekhyun and Kyungsoo to play hero, because Jongdae’s afraid that if this goes on for any longer, there won’t be anything left to save.

  
  
  


 

Cycles pass, and Baekhyun grows more restless with each passing nano-period, finding it too inappropriate to kill time with anything that isn’t worrying, or discussing the problem at hand with Kyungsoo. There’s still an awkward atmosphere between the dogs and Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, but, at the very least, Sehun tries to soothe over it all to minimal success. The atmosphere is tense and foreign, and Baekhyun spends a lot of it with Kyungsoo in Sehun’s quarters --which he’d sacrificed-- either sleeping curled up next to one another or just… sitting in silence.

The longer it drags on, the more Baekhyun begins to worry about Jongdae, and actively miss him, too. It’s like there’s a hole in his heart that’s sucking in everything around him and crushing it, and combined with the sheer panic of the situation, it’s safe to say Baekhyun has trouble simply sitting around and doing nothing. But that’s all he can do, for cycles on end, just wait and wait for Lu Han’s call, for them to reach the turning point, for anything.

It’s reaching the stage where Baekhyun can’t sleep, barely eats, just restlessly paces back and forth deteriorates his own body with nervousness until Kyungsoo plants a firm hand on his shoulder and tells him to _stop_.

“You’ll need to be in good condition if we have any chance of rescuing Jongdae,” Kyungsoo says, stern, but gentle too. “It’s okay, Baekhyunnie. We’ll be okay.”

“How can you be so sure of that?” Baekhyun asks, voice pathetically weak even to his own ears, but the only thing Kyungsoo does is lean down and kiss him, softly. It had been apparent to Baekhyun, that despite everything that had happened between all three of them, not once had Baekhyun and Kyungsoo kissed. Maybe it was fear, or something worse, some thought that once they’d start they’d never stop, or that their all-encompassing love for each other would consume them from the inside out if they ever acted upon it, destroy the necessity of their already functional relationship, destroy the balance they provided one another. Because sex is sex, and can be just sex, but there’s an intimacy to kissing that isn’t so clean-cut, without a clear finish line or purpose. Kissing is just about kissing, but like all things unspoken between Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, this kiss is a whole lot more, and even the metal hand against the back of his neck, keeping him in place and causing him to shiver, doesn’t stop Baekhyun from understanding the _promise_ Kyungsoo places in this kiss, the reassurance that he won’t let everything they have together --including Jongdae-- be destroyed so easily.

And then he pulls away, and suddenly it’s just a kiss, and nothing more, as Baekhyun’s eyelids slowly flutter open, time reverting back to normal.

“Because we always work out shit like this,” Kyungsoo mutters lowly, lips twitching upwards. “You and me. Everytime.”

“And Jongdae,” Baekhyun adds lamely. “Now.”

“And Jongdae.” Kyungsoo agrees, thumbs brushing over Baekhyun’s cheekbones with an indescribable amount of tenderness to it that makes Baekhyun wonder why the fuck he and Kyungsoo hadn’t done this earlier. Some part of him has always loved Kyungsoo and some part of him had always known Kyungsoo had loved him back. All it took was Jongdae to bridge the gap, to steady them, to make their all-consuming love for each other more balanced and stable, more viable in a line of work as volatile as theirs. All it took was Jongdae to remind them to be brave.

A shrill ring snaps them out of staring at each other, however, and then their eyes both widen in realisation at what it means.

Kyungsoo picks up within in a micro-period.

  
  
  


 

“What you’re looking for is a ship called the _Ark_ ,” Lu Han explains, as a hologram of the ship displays in the centre console of cockpit, Baekhyun continuously running his tongue back and forth along the points of his teeth behind his lips. “You were right, our buyer _did_ hire another crew to pick up your slack. And they hired a collector’s house through Sunyoung.”

That wasn’t uncommon, in Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s line of work --collector houses were common mid-way points of trade for… less than common items from around the galaxy, travelling merchants of sorts. Collectors would often, well, _collect_ items of great value --either on demand or to be auctioned off-- for buyers who either didn’t want to do the dirty work, or couldn’t. Of course, the collectors Baekhyun and Kyungsoo had worked with in the past mostly wanted priceless pieces of art and whatnot, not _people_ , but it doesn’t come as much surprise that they’re on the list too. Collectors are often known for doing nearly anything if the price is high enough; it makes sense that they’d be their buyer’s second choice, albeit a little pricier than Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, no doubt.

“It’s big. Real big.” Lu Han continues. “A Kelter 9, carbon-fiber aluminum mix.”

“What?” Jongin asks, laughing a little incredulously and stepping forward. “And you’re just expecting us to look for it in deep-space?” He sounds a little amused, in like, an unbelieving way, but either way --he has a point. All this information is great if they were in a docking hub, but they’re in space; visual cues won’t do shit, and it's not like they're on a fuel residue tail.

“Who the hell is that?” Lu Han asks, to which Kyungsoo replies, _nobody important_ , and gestures for him to continue. Lu Han clearly doesn’t care enough to press further.

“As I was saying,” he gives Jongin a pointed look through the screen, now that he’s stepped into view for Lu Han. “That’s not the best part, though. I managed to score a transmission frequency.”

Now that’s getting somewhere.

“The Ark has potential buyers and sellers going all the time, if you have this frequency, you have an in,” he sends over the details accordingly. “That cost me an arm and a leg to bargain out of Song Qian though, so you owe me big time.” Lu Han _hmph_ s. “Say you’re an affiliate of Victoria looking to buy, and they should let you through, _tai’veshk_.”

Jongin seems affronted by the use of such a term being used in such an endeared way, but Kyungsoo is clearly unbothered, ignoring him altogether.

“Alright,” he responds curtly. “Thank you, Lu Han.”

“Oh, and Kyungsoo?” Lu Han asks, just as Kyungsoo is about to shut off the comms altogether. “Be careful out there, okay? I know of this ship, and I know its rep. You’re dealing with the bottom of the pits, _tai’veshk_ , so try to keep your expensive metal feet clean.”

The panel clicks off, and Kyungsoo immediately tells Yerim the transmission frequency, so she can set the ship’s scanner for it. For ships like the Ark, that requires visitors to come and go constantly as it travels, it’s not uncommon to basically have a beacon signal constantly being broadcast at all times, so that they’re not lost in deep space with no cash flow. At a unique frequency, the Ark can control who knows their location and when, and luckily Lu Han had pulled enough strings to find out exactly what it is. Who knows how many favours he’d dug up with other brokers like himself within the black market to get such a thing; Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are now more indebted to him than ever before.

“They should be _riiiight aboooutttt_ …” Yerim opens up a holo-map of the quadrant. “Here.”

An orange glowing dot shows up, right as they’d predicted it to one one of the main hyperspace highways, quickly approaching the conjunction point where they’ll be forced back to normal speeds.

“You ready for this?” Yerim asks, as Sehun, sitting in the pilot’s seat, nods, manually deploying the control panel to _steer_ _in hyperspace_.

“Oh god,” Baekhyun blurts. “We’re all going to die.”

“Relax,” Sehun says, and Baekhyun resists the urge to make a comment along the lines of _easy for you to say, you’re a fucking tree_. “It’s not as hard as you'd think.”

“There’s a narrow channel along the outskirts you can take,” Yerim directs, as Sehun adjusts the ship’s path accordingly. A warning pops up on a holo-screen, something along the lines of _warning_ : _entering a forbidden zone for hyperspace travel_ , and Sehun bats it away without even reading it. Baekhyun is so reassured right now. “Between some planets, then you’ll have a narrow window of opportunity here.” She draws a line so that an _L_ forms on the map between where the ship is headed through the forbidden zone, and where it will turn in order to head back towards the conjunction and cut the Ark off. “It’s the only route outside of the highways that won’t have any um… obstacles.”

Because you wouldn’t want to be colliding into anything at the speed of light, now would you?

“We do this all the time when we’re late for stuff,” Jongin offers, as if that’s any consolation, and Baekhyun does, at the very least, enjoy the way Kyungsoo’s single eye blinks as he obviously comes to the same _we’re going to die_ epiphany Baekhyun is having right now.

They stay on the forbidden route for a few nano-periods or so, as Baekhyun grips onto Kyungsoo’s arm in desperation and fear, white-knuckled as they can only watch through the windshield as the universe zips by. Sehun has about a single micro-period’s window of timing to successfully hook the ship around without any form of _death_ , and it does not, in the slightest, make Baekhyun feel safe.

“Approaching the point,” Yerim says, and then begins counting down. “9…. 8… 7…” Baekhyun closes his eyes. “6… 5…” Kyungsoo squeezes his hand back. “4… 3… 2… 1…” There’s a pause before Yerim cooly says, “Now.”

Sehun immediately jerks the manual controls in one swift movement, and the entire ship lurches as it hooks around the assigned bend, causing Kyungsoo to stumble into Baekhyun as the artificial gravity plays up for a split second at such intense movements in hyperspace. Baekhyun waits for the cold vacuum of space or the burn of collision of hitting something at light speed to come, but it never does.

“Oh my god,” Baekhyun says, and, despite everything, falls off his feet.

Sehun exits hyperspace with a satisfied smile on his face, as the glowing orange dot of the Ark currently approaches the blue dot that signals their own ship’s position, Yerim adjusting the ship’s direction so that it heads for the transmission beacon.

“Told you it was easy,” Sehun says, almost cockily, offering a hand out. Reluctantly, Baekhyun takes it. Kyungsoo is only leaning against the wall, a little wide-eyed as his hand presses against it --which makes Baekhyun feel better about himself, in hindsight.

“Easy,” Baekhyun breathes out. “That’s what you call that.”

Kyungsoo swears in Drovaryian, then says, “Fucking _dogs_.”

Sehun only laughs.

  
  
  


 

Jongdae spends a lot of time drifting in and out of consciousness, he finds.

Sometimes his dreams are littered with Junmyeon, sometimes they’re not. Junmyeon isn’t Terran, like Jongdae, he doesn’t need water as much, or food, or even sleep --he certainly isn’t also dying, so there’s that factor too. Junmyeon is always talking whenever Jongdae is actually awake, trying to keep him focused above the pain, but it’s so hard to not succumb to it, that his words often go in one side of Jongdae’s brain and out the other.

Jongdae’s mattress is covered in black stains, and either the patrols have seen it and don’t care, or don’t even care enough to notice it to begin with, as Jongdae finds himself coughing more often than anything else, whenever he’s awake.

Bored, irritated, frustrated, despairing and miserable, Jongdae curls into himself upon his own blood soaked mattress, and squeezes his eyes shut.

  
  
  


 

“Echo-scanning now,” Yerim announces, as Sehun steers their ship towards the Ark’s open docking bay, protected by a holoshield.

“This ship’s registry isn’t recognised by the Ark,” a soothing voice says, once a communication channel is opened. “To whom do we owe the pleasure?”

“Representatives of Victoria,” Yerim smoothly lies. There’s a pause of silence.

“But this ship isn’t one of Victoria’s registered ships,” the pleasant voice replies, although there’s a hint of concern.

“Yes, well, what can she do when she needs a last minute gift for her friend’s engagement party but all her representatives are halfway across the galaxy and the only crew she can trust to get to the Ark and back to her in time is _unregistered_. Don’t you think having the transmission frequency is proof enough? It’s not like Victoria has time to phone ahead what with all these wedding preparations for her friend--”

Kyungsoo blinks, surprised at such an easy lie, and the pleasant voice nervously says, “My apologies. Please, welcome to the Ark.”

“Easy peasy,” Yerim says, with a satisfied smirk. Even though the snociel is clearly young, with a baby face and naive eyes, Kyungsoo is kind of terrified of her right now. Most dogs are ex-cons, after all. Sehun leads them into the entryway.

“Upload the echo scans to my comm,” Kyungsoo says shortly, as Yerim obliges and a rough map of the arc displays itself on Kyungsoo’s cybernetic eyes. Lu Han hadn’t been kidding when he’d called it big. There are hundreds of corridors and rooms and Jongdae could be in any single one of them.

“We should split up,” Yerim suggests immediately. “You three are too weird-looking, so Jongin and I will pretend to be the reps.” Kyungsoo is a tailless Drovaryian cyborg, so he’s not going to argue there, Baekhyun is Kuhonian, which is simply too out of place, but Sehun just looks… mildly offended. “You can focus on finding Jongdae, while we keep up the ruse.” She interlocks two of her arms with one of Jongin’s, who seems bewildered to be dragged along, as Yerim simply tucks an earpiece into one ear and tugs Jongin towards the loading bay. “Good luck~”

“How do you expect on saving him?” Jongin quickly asks, before Yerim can pull him off the whole way.

“By doing what we do best,” Kyungsoo answers, giving a small shrug. “Stealing him back.”

The loading bay closes behind them.

Sehun switches on the external cameras to watch for a clear coast and hands them both blasters as Kyungsoo tries to process everything that’s happened in the past few periods. Somewhere on this oversized ship, is Jongdae, and Kyungsoo can _feel_ it in his chest, that they’re close, his energy core buzzing as his hearts thump loudly.

They watch as Yerim and Jongin are predictably greeted by one of the workers on the Ark, alongside two guards, the same way someone would be greeted walking into a restaurant, shown to their table and everything. Yerim cracks a joke, and the worker laughs politely, as Jongin just does his best to not look terrified beside her.

“Go,” Yerim mumbles, having synced up their ear pieces and comms earlier. Kyungsoo, Baekhyun and Sehun don’t need to be told twice, as Sehun drops them down via the cargo bay of his ship, rather than the loading bay doors. It gives them cover as they land on the ground beneath the ship, and they wait patiently for the patrols to pass before zipping to the next ship for cover, et cetera et cetera, until they’re out of the loading zone and into one of the maintenance elevators, heading up to the first floor of the Ark. It's devoid of security cameras, luckily, the ceiling bare save for an emergency hatch.

“This ship is fucking huge,” Baekhyun hisses, as he opens up the echo-map on a holo-display in front of him. “How the fuck are we going to find Jongdae in all of this?”

“Luck?” Sehun suggests, which Baekhyun gives him a dirty look for. They’d been getting along weirdly well, all things considered, which Kyungsoo had considered strange since the last thing they’d done together before all this had been Baekhyun threatening Sehun’s life.

“Predatory state?” Kyungsoo suggests, and Baekhyun bites his lip.

“I can try,” he offers, wincing, slightly. “But there’s… a lot going on here. Recycled air on top of increased ventilation… it doesn’t help.”

Not to mention the way Baekhyun’s body is shaking, minutely, the fact that his tails can’t stay still. Kyungsoo responds to panic by shutting down completely, but Baekhyun has problems with situations where he doesn’t feel in control, where there are too many variables in the mix for it to be as smooth and seamless as most of their jobs can be. Countered to that is his sheer ability to hold himself together, and appear like he’s in control, but Kyungsoo knows the telltale signs. Baekhyun can’t concentrate and slip into the predatory state if his mind is too busy wondering if Jongdae is even still living. (Which he is, of course, because Kyungsoo knows that the whole point of being the last of his kind is to keep him alive, but there’s a whole league of difference between being alive and _living_.)

The elevator opens up, and they immediately hide beside the doors, checking the corridor. It’s empty, thank god, but it’s huge nonetheless, weirdly spacious for something that only has a few items on laser-trapped pedestals. Kyungsoo can see them crisscrossing through his cybernetic eye, but it’s more the cameras trained on every item that he has a problem with.

“Don’t walk out,” he says, curling a hand around Baekhyun’s wrist. “Cameras.”

It’s not like the Ark would worry about thieves too much when the only people who can find them are ones they quote unquote ‘trust’, but it makes sense that they’d still employ some security on a ship that’s too big for the amount of employees inside.

“He’s not on this floor, anyway,” Sehun says, vines curling in the air. “Jongdae’s not some piece of art, he’s a living being. They’re not just going to display him anywhere.”

He had a point there, but their map of the ship is hideously incomplete and undetailed. They somehow have to find a way to go through all thirty floors of the ship with a fine-toothed comb without getting caught once. Very doable.

“Okay, so, what? That should narrow it down to some of the bigger spaces.” Baekhyun fiddles with the map, highlighting the areas that could be ruled out. The cockpit could be scratched out, so could the engine room, cargo bay, loading dock and observatory deck. That at least narrowed the volume they were working in.

“Here,” Sehun says, and quickly searches something on his comm, which Kyungsoo realises is the actual schematic of a Kelter 9 ship. Ships could be customised and rearranged according to the owner’s whim, but in the same way that a toilet in a house will always remain the place where the toilet is, some similarities should be the same. “This is the residential section.” Sehun examines his own map before fiddling with Baekhyun’s, highlighting three floors worth of cabins where the employees upon the ship would live. “And this is the cafeteria.” He crosses out one of the grander chambers towards the back of the ship, ruling out half a floor or so. “Bathrooms are here.” A few rooms get crossed off. “And laundry rooms and storage closets.” It still leaves them with a decent chunk of the ship to search for Jongdae, but it at least narrowed it down slightly.

“You can cross off the first few floors,” Jongin says quietly, over the comms, evidently having been listening to their discussion. “Price goes up as floor value does.”

Then that leaves them with a few of the middle levels, although it’s still a huge amount of ground to cover in what presumably is a short amount of time. They need some way to narrow it down.

“Ahhh ah ah ah ah,” Baekhyun says, as he realises something. “Look!” He points out something on Sehun’s downloaded map, and then to his own, teeth pointing out from behind a small, hopeful smile. “Discrepancies.”

And sure enough, Sehun overlays the two holo-displays, and Baekhyun highlights the rooms that have been added into the ship, different to the carbon-copy, original design.

“Hidden rooms,” Kyungsoo exhales, because of course you’d keep the most precious items away from the common eye, only to the highest of bidders and most trusted of customers. Flaunting it would only lead to unnecessary attention, or maybe, they’re not the kind of things the grandmaster is trying to sell, but deliver. If they’re not on the ship’s original schematics, then that means they’ve been added in for an important reason.

That narrows it down to about three places Jongdae could be in, each across a level.

“Okay, well, problem number one.” Baekhyun starts. “The moment we leave this elevator: cameras.”

Kyungsoo looks up at the elevator ceiling.

“Well,” he replies, examining the emergency exit hatch. “Not necessarily.”

 

 

 

 

 

In all honesty, this could be going better.

Not that it was going too badly, but still; Baekhyun had had better cycles.

Namely: cycles where he wasn’t being carried through a ventilation shaft, by an overgrown tree.

“This fucking sucks,” Baekhyun whispers, for the umpteenth time. Not only had they entered the vent via the elevator while it had still been moving --which had been terrifying-- but Baekhyun had no capability of climbing through the enclosed space. Kyungsoo had his cybernetic strength and magnetic implants, and Sehun had the ability to grow limbs on demand, and use the little suckers on his vines to tug him along. Baekhyun just had too many tails and thick, ropey piece of vine Sehun had grown and curled around his waist, to tug him through the vents every time one of them got a little too vertical for Baekhyun to manage.

It was hot, and cramped, and smelled like too many things at once as recycled air from all across the ship was fanned through the shafts continuously. Baekhyun just wanted them to find Jongdae and go home already.

The first room out of three that they check turns out to be nothing but storage, stacked up crates that they examine through the vent, roped together and meticulously placed. They have no interest in whatever’s inside, so they don’t even leave the vent to check. The second room has glass cages of some kind, with a hundred different kind of animals Baekhyun can’t name trapped inside them, some submerged in water, others surrounded by huge heaters. They crawl over the grates with caution, careful to not make a noise if they see someone so they don’t get caught. It means they’re stuck stopping and starting a lot, moving only when the coast is clear.

But it all pays off when they get to the third room, just as Baekhyun thinks all is lost, as they finally find--

“Jongdae,” Kyungsoo breathes out, and within micro-periods he’s opening the grate and jumping down, Sehun following suit as he carefully catches Baekhyun with his branch. They’ve exited into some form of… prison row, with lines of glass cages --most of them empty-- stretching through the entire corridor. The only cell that isn’t vacant is the one with Jongdae --curled up into fetal position and sleeping, looking frail and weak-- and the one adjacent to that, which contains a species Baekhyun couldn’t name even if he wanted to.

“Oh my god,” the green person says, in heavily accented common. “You actually came.”

Baekhyun doesn’t know what that means, and he’s too busy rushing over to Jongdae’s cell to make sense of it, pressing his hands against the glass.

“Jongdae,” Baekhyun says. “ _Jongdae_.”

On cue, Jongdae stirs, groggily, and he looks at Baekhyun and Kyungsoo through squinted eyes, almost as if he doesn’t believe they’re there. He's nearly completely naked save for all the jewellery and markings on his face to make him look more decadent and a sheer piece of cloth across his groin, and it angers Baekhyun beyond reason, because Jongdae is beautiful enough as is.

“Baekhyun?” He says eventually, weakly. “Kyungsoo? Sehun?” Immediately he’s rushing towards the edge of the glass, where Baekhyun’s hand is placed flat against it. Jongdae’s hand mirrors parallel to his, although not touching the glass, just slightly back from it. Hesitantly, Jongdae smiles, and it’s the most soothing thing Baekhyun has seen in a very long time.

Then, Jongdae speaks gibberish.

Baekhyun looks at him for a split second, in confusion, and watches as the smile wipes off of Jongdae’s face, as if remembering something. He steps back from the edge of the cell with sad eyes, and bends over, pushing up the long strands of his curly hair to reveal the small incision that’s been made above his spine, right where the UTC would have been.

“He doesn’t understand us,” Baekhyun says, in horror, or maybe shock, or maybe just plain old anger. It’s clear nothing else has been done to Jongdae other than the bizarre clothing he’s been dressed in and the shallowness of his cheeks. It brings some form of reassurance to Baekhyun’s mind, but a whole bunch of pure, heated anger, too, because Jongdae’s been shoved into some cage like an animal before the Ark could sell him off.

“If you want to get him out,” the green alien says. “You’ll have to get the key off the grandmaster or one of the guards. You can find it--”

Kyungsoo punches the glass.

Like, straight up fucking _punches it_ , with so much force behind his solid metal limbs, it causes the sturdy glass to shatter into a hundred pieces as Jongdae just steps back and stares at him with wide eyes.

“Or that works too,” Sehun suggests, as alarms start blaring every which way.

“Come on,” Kyungsoo says, even if Jongdae doesn’t understand them, the gesture is clear enough, as he hesitantly dodges shards of glass and hops down onto the floor beside them, feet hindered by restraints, blinking in bewilderment.

“God that was so hot,” Baekhyun blurts, before he can stop himself, still looking at Kyungsoo in awe. Jongdae laughs, even though he has no idea of what Baekhyun had said; maybe he’d gotten the gist, stumbling slightly on weak, limited legs.

“Junmyeon,” Jongdae says, tugging on Kyungsoo’s wrist and pointing to the green alien, making wide gestures.

Understanding immediately, Kyungsoo breaks the green alien out similarly, who seems shocked. He looks at Jongdae, who grins at him, and then, Sehun says, “Um.” And they run.

“Please tell me that wasn’t you guys,” Yerim hisses, over the comms. “We’re being forced to evacuate due to an _intrusion_. You better make it back in time. We can only stall so much.”

“Well, we’re _trying_ ,” Kyungsoo hisses back, as Baekhyun wraps a hand around Jongdae’s wrist, just to make sure he doesn’t slip away. Not again.

They turn a corridor, running into some guards, and immediately they begin to backtrack, heading for the elevator at the opposite end. Kyungsoo takes the blaster out of his belt and begins firing backwards, but over his shoulder, it’s difficult to land a shot though, and eventually he settles for sprinting instead.

“Come on!” Sehun shouts, smashing the down button on the elevator. He and Kyungsoo begin firing backwards, just as Junmyeon shoves Jongdae so that a stray bullet doesn’t hit him, burning into the wall instead. Jongdae looks at the spot with wide eyes, then carefully cowers away from it. Spotting a guard in the opposite direction, Jongdae reaches for the blaster at Baekhyun’s belt before he himself can even register it and fires, hitting the guard square in the chest --but only at the stun setting. Jongdae blinks, a little surprised at himself, and Baekhyun’s brain short-circuits.

“Oh my god that was so hot,” Baekhyun blurts, unable to help himself. “Why are my boyfriends so hot?” Jongdae gives him a knowing grin.

The elevator doors open, and they immediately pour in, slamming the button to close the door as Kyungsoo smashes the button for one of the higher floors, where the escape pods are.

“Um,” Baekhyun says. “Docking bay was floor five, not _twenty-five_.”

“I know that,” Kyungsoo hisses. “But an elevator is a walking trap, Baekhyun.”

Oh, good point.

Similar to last time, Sehun opens the emergency hatch, and extends his limbs to help them through, while Kyungsoo easily jumps out.

“We have to jump on three, okay?” Baekhyun says, turning to Junmyeon and Jongdae, who he then realises doesn’t understand. Regardless, Jongdae nods, jaw set in determination, and Baekhyun blinks at him, confused, before focusing back on the timing.

There’s an opening into a vent shaft a few floors up, and Baekhyun easily spots it in the darkness, steeling his breath.

“One,” he says, “Two…” It will be a stretch to get all five of them down it in time, but. “ _Three!_ ”

Baekhyun dives in, with Jongdae close behind, Junmyeon at their heels, but as he turns around, the elevator passes; it hadn’t been a window of opportunity long enough for Sehun and Kyungsoo.

“Shit,” Baekhyun says, two restrained prison escapees stuck alone in the vents with the only person who can’t climb them properly. Fuck, why did he jump first?

“Baekhyun, it’s okay, we can rendezvous,” Kyungsoo says over their comm link, causing Baekhyun to relax instinctively. “Just focus on moving forward, and we should be able to join up eventually.”

“Okay,” Baekhyun exhales, calming himself down, because he can _do_ this. “Let’s keep moving.”

It’s hard to maneuver around in such a tight space, but Baekhyun manages just enough of a brief glance over his shoulder to see the way Jongdae nods quickly. Baekhyun can tell from the way his bones are showing, the colour of his skin, and the faint haze over his eyes that Jongdae is in no shape for _any_ of this, really, but the clear determination in his face makes Baekhyun’s heart hurt regardless.

“How can you understand me?” He blurts. “I thought you don’t have the UTC.” Jongdae stares at him blankly.

“He doesn’t,” Junmyeon finally speaks up, Baekhyun almost having forgotten he’d been with them to begin with, oddly soft-spoken. “I’m translating.”

“What?” Baekhyun asks, but Junmyeon just sighs.

“Can we please get a move on? I’ll explain the miracle of science afterwards.” Baekhyun would make a quip about how Junmyeon could afford to be a little nicer since they’ve unanimously decided to save his life per Jongdae’s gibberish demand, but he recognises that everything has a time and a place, and also that Junmyeon has a _point_. Baekhyun continues crawling through the vents, hating the slow speed, and stops suddenly when he hits the first drop point between floors.

“Shit,” Baekhyun curses. “Shit shit shitty shit shit.”

There’s a hand on his leg and some reassuring words of gibberish from Jongdae, and Baekhyun takes comfort in the strange consonants and syllables.

“He says that you can do this,” Junmyeon interprets, as if that wasn’t already obvious from all the reassuring parts as mentioned above; Baekhyun resists the urge to roll his eyes, focusing on the giant metal fall of death in front of him. If he can use his tails and limbs to slow down the fall… it’s Jongdae and Junmyeon (reluctantly) that he’s worried about. He doesn’t have Kyungsoo’s strength or magnets Sehun’s magical limbs, he’s just an oversized canine that’s way too far from home.

But they don’t have the chance to waste time. Sending the elevator up to the highest floor will only distract security for so long. Baekhyun has never been good with heights, but he can’t afford to keep his eyes shut, carefully planting both feet on the other side of the shaft and using his tails and arms to cause any amount of friction. It fucking _burns_ , scraping along the edge of his tails and the palms of his hands, but instead of screaming he just grits his teeth through it, eventually hitting the end of the shaft unceremoniously on his ass, panting with relief.

Luckily, he can easily stand in the space, and gestures for Jongdae to jump. Although it’s not exactly wide, Baekhyun accommodates for that by stretching out his tails and tensing them around Jongdae as he falls, wrapping his arms around his middle to lower him to his feet. Baekhyun points to the next shaft they’ll have to crawl through, and Jongdae easily obliges after gently touching one of Baekhyun’s bleeding tails reassuringly, awkwardly squeezing through the space. He repeats the process again, with Junmyeon, and they have a split second of awkward eye contact as they stand face-to-face in a space not really big enough for two people, before Junmyeon is following Jongdae’s suit. Baekhyun doesn’t like being behind because it means he has to hiss directions at Junmyeon to ‘translate’ for Jongdae as he checks the tiny display on his wrist-comm, he doesn’t like the fact that he can’t watch out for dangers in front, but he does, at the very least, take comfort in focusing on Jongdae’s head, and having something to crawl towards other than endless, stuffy darkness.

There’s a thump from above them, and immediately they all freeze perfectly, worried that maybe someone worked out where they were, or heard them, or--

Kyungsoo smiles from the end of the shaft by the next drop, red eyes distinctly glowing in the darkness, metal hands pressed against the sides of the shaft.

“Need a hand?” He asks, sliding the rest of the way down as Sehun follows, gently curling a few vines around Jongdae, who looks at them in bewilderment (and maybe mild disgust) before tugging him out down the next floor. Baekhyun can’t even prevent the grin from splitting across his face.

With Sehun and Kyungsoo to easily navigate and help them through the sudden vertical drops, it’s not long before they’re at the fifth floor, according to Sehun’s map, as they crawl back into the elevator shaft, facing the doors across the open, gaping space. Kyungsoo easily leaps across to the other side of the shaft, feet sticking to the metal wall, and slowly, he pries the doors apart, opening them onto the loading bay, where the coast is miraculously clear, and Sehun’s ship is the only one left in the entire empty space.

“Come on,” Kyungsoo says, waving an arm. Sehun easily stretches across the space, and strains as he carries them over one-by-one, before they’re all in the docking bay rather than the ventilation shaft, and quickly sprinting --as fast as they can with two of them restrained at the ankles-- towards Zephyr, where the loading doors are open, Yerim arguing with the employee who had been showing them around.

“Fucking finally,” Jongin says, as they jump onto the ship, Yerim grinning at the attendant.

“Oh, looks like I found my missing bracelet,” she says, reaching for the button to close the bay doors right as a stern voice says _halt_.

It’s just a fleudrian, but Baekhyun can tell by the indulgent clothes he wears and the way in which he holds himself that this is the grandmaster, accompanied by a row of guards, all with blasters pointed their direction.

The blob-like alien crawls forward on a single trail of slime, and Baekhyun can smell him all the way from here. _Gross_.

“Hand back the specimens or pay the price,” the grandmaster says, with an air of coolness that simply makes Baekhyun’s blood boil. “These blasters are not set to stun, but give the merchandise back, and maybe we can forget this ever happened.”

Right, well, that was the worst bluff Baekhyun had ever heard in his life, but _maybe_ the grandmaster should be given points for trying.

Jongdae steps forward immediately, almost as if to sacrifice himself, hands raised, but Baekhyun immediately reaches out and jerks him back, Kyungsoo similarly making the same move, rooting him in place.

“ _Not again_ ,” Baekhyun hisses, growling low in his throat, and Jongdae looks at him stubbornly, trying to push them away but failing. Junmyeon clenches his jaw, obviously a little more hesitant about the whole turning-himself-in thing, but Baekhyun isn’t letting Jongdae be a stupid self-sacrificing idiot ever again.

Jongdae does break away from their grip, eventually, but only because Sehun has tugged him into his own arms, and pressed a blaster against his head.

Jongdae is frozen in shock.

“This is valuable to you, right?” Sehun asks, causing the fleudrian to narrow his eyes on top of their stalks. “But I’m guessing you meant that in an alive kind of way.”

Immediately, the grandmaster gestures for the guards to put their guns down, and they oblige, as Kyungsoo hisses “ _What the hell are you doing?_ ” towards Sehun, who promptly ignores him.

“You wouldn’t hurt it,” the grandmaster confidently says. “You’re here to save it, aren’t you?”

“No, that’d be these two,” Sehun tilts his head to gesture at Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, who are so numb in shock they can’t even make sense of the situation, Baekhyun noticing the tiny tremors in Jongdae’s arms and legs as Sehun presses the blaster closer against his temple. “Me? I’m here for my reward.”

“ _Throsh’nar fesk,”_ Kyungsoo scowls, as Yerim keeps an unusually calm face, Junmyeon looking terrified a few steps behind. Had it all been a ruse? Chasing them, pretending to be hunters for Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, only for Jongdae to have been the prize all along. It’s hard to believe, that Sehun could be the traitor just like that, but somehow, it’s not impossible for Baekhyun to believe that, either, because they are, at the end of the day, just a bunch of collared _dogs_. Sehun had always shown a weird interest in Jongdae, so maybe...

“This one’s wanted alive,” Sehun says, gesturing to Junmyeon, and his gnarled lips turn up into a crude grin. “But this one fetches a high price once stuffed.”

“ _No!_ ” The grandmaster, Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo all shout as Sehun pulls the trigger with a soft click and Yerim immediately slams the button for the bay doors to close, Jongdae’s body crumpling to the ground as Sehun easily drops him, collar around his neck producing a flat line. Jongin rushes to the pilot’s seat and starts the engine, the hull of the ship thudding as blaster shots bounce across the closing doors and appearing shields, but Baekhyun doesn’t pay attention to a single bit of it, immediately kneeling alongside Jongdae’s body and mumbling strings of _no no no no no_ , similar to Kyungsoo, as Junmyeon stands by the doors, mouth half-open and horrified.

“You motherfucking _son of a bitch_ ,” Baekhyun hisses, immediately storming forward and pinning Sehun to the wall, slamming a fist into his face and ignoring the way it comes back sticky with sap, tails twirled and pointed and ready to strike. After everything they’ve done, everything they’ve been through, everything Jongdae is and was and always would be-- Sehun betrayed them for what? Some fucking credits? From who? The Union? Some random fucking collector?

“ _Baekhyun!_ ” Junmyeon shouts, but Baekhyun heeds it no mind, continuing to punch Sehun’s face over and over and over and over, even as Jongin launches them into hyperspace. “He’s alive! Jongdae is alive.”

“What?” Baekhyun snaps, freezes, confused, as Kyungsoo looks up, equally as stunned.

“His conscious is still there he’s--” right on cue, the little holo-screen that displays Jongdae’s vitals spikes, just once. “--He’s alive.”

“Wha--” Baekhyun begins to say, and then lets go of Sehun in realisation. “Oh my fucking gods.”

Sehun grins down at him with sap covered lips, as he holds up the gun and empties it, a few, pale-blue glowing bullets slipping out, cluttering to the ground uselessly.

“I can’t fucking believe you,” Baekhyun says aghast. “Why the fuck would you shoot him!?!?”

Eternity or not, it seems a little excessive --at the very least, Baekhyun is relieved Sehun hasn’t been double-crossing them this entire time.

“Because I needed the shock to buy us some time to get out,” Sehun answers, wincing as he touches a finger to his lip. “And… and maybe they’ll actually think he’s dead and stop searching for him.”

The consideration on the matter catches Baekhyun off-guard, but he’s still kind of _angry_ about it anyway.

“I can’t believe you let me punch you,” he says, blinking.

“Thought I should let you get it out of your system,” Sehun offers, shrugging, and Baekhyun punches him again. “ _Ow_.”

“ _That’s_ for not telling us about your plan ahead of time,” Baekhyun says, huffing indignantly. “Okay,” he smiles. “Now it’s out of my system.”

“I only came up with it on spot, eternity and the needle-gun was all I had on hand--” Sehun begins explaining, but none of that matters as Baekhyun kneels back alongside Jongdae’s body, where Kyungsoo is gently cradling it, exhaling out in relief. 

“I thought--” he starts, and his voice breaks, throat bobbing even as he smiles weakly. “I really--”

“It’s okay, Soo,” Baekhyun says in relief, laughing in sheer disbelief as Jongdae’s heartbeat slowly begins to pick up again. “He’s okay. We’re okay.”

“He is,” Kyungsoo agrees, as Baekhyun intertwines their fingers together as they look down on Jongdae’s inappropriately peaceful face, silently agreeing that they’ll never, ever let him out of their sight, ever again.

 

 

 

 

 

(In front of Jongdae, is a small bird with a broken wing.

It doesn’t take much thought for him to bend down and pick the animal up, cradling it gently in his cupped palms.

“Careful,” Jongdeok chastises, peeling Jongdae’s fingers back so he doesn’t harm the bird by gripping it too tightly. “It’s already hurt. You don’t need to hold onto it like that.”

Except Jongdae isn’t thirteen anymore, and Jongdeok isn’t fifteen, and the bird in his hands is gone and they’re standing in Jongdeok’s lab, at the hospital, as Jongdae looks up at his brother’s face for the first time and properly sees his face.

“I wasn’t hurting it,” Jongdae replies, defiantly. “You just worry too much.”

Jongdeok laughs, familiar in its sound, as he pushes Jongdae back, lightly, his body unable to disobey as it sort of floats in the air, eventually hitting something solid.

“That’s right,” he agrees. “I’ve never been good at letting things go, have I?”

“Always so overprotective, hyung,” Jongdae teases, as something cold pools at his feet and he thinks, _ah_. “Why are you doing this to me?” Jongdae asks, concerned. “I never asked for you to save me.”

“No,” Jongdeok agrees, pressing a needle into Jongdae’s arm and letting pale blue, glowing liquid flow into his bloodstream, to keep him preserved... “You didn’t.” Jongdeok had, of course, been into the study and research of cryogenics long before Jongdae’s illness had hit terminal but, then again, Jongdae had been living with blackblood for years, now, so maybe Jongdeok had been planning this for longer than just when Jongdae’s condition hit _terminal_. (Although, in a way, it had always been terminal, hadn’t it?) “But I chose to do it anyway.”

“Why?” Jongdae asks, as the blue jelly begins to fill his nostrils, his lungs, clogging up his throat and keeping his body in place as it slowly turns colder and colder. “Why me?”

“Because out of everyone on the planet,” Jongdeok easily answers. “You were the only one who deserved a second chance.” Jongdeok smiles lopsidedly. “You always did love like a fool.”

“No, you’re being stupid,” Jongdae counters. “You only chose to save me because I’m your brother.”

“Well who said you’re the only one I saved?” Jongdeok counters, as Jongdae’s hazy brain struggles to make sense of that. “I mean, you were the _first_ , evidently, but who’s to say I never commercialised my findings after that? Or at least saved myself? Do you truly believe I know better than to play god, or do you actually think I was selfless enough to pick you above the entire human race.” The suddenness of such a statement shocks Jongdae, but his limbs are too frozen to move. “Of course, you don’t know the answer to that, so I don’t either, being a figment of your subconscious or whatever, but it’s interesting, isn’t it? That you’ve never considered otherwise.”

Maybe it is possible, Jongdae wonders, that there are other people, frozen and forgotten, like he had been, waiting for someone to wake them up. Maybe he isn’t the last of his kind after all.

But then again, it’s not like Jongdeok had _meant_ for Jongdae to fall asleep for over 2000 bands; maybe Jongdae had just been some fluke case to have lasted that long, without getting freezer burn like uneaten ice cream.

Jongdae laughs to himself. “I am so fucking sick of dreaming,” he admits.

“Then you should wake up,” a voice suggests, and Jongdae finds his brother gone, staring at Junmyeon instead. “And stop dwelling on your past.”

“It’s not that simple,” Jongdae drily replies, voice echoing off the walls of the pod. “It’s not like you let go of your past so easily, either.”

The scenery shifts, only minutely, to a tall, dense, purple forest unlike one on any planet Jongdae can think of, as an Elidrian just like Junmyeon smiles at the both of them from beside them, dimple and all.

The scene quickly shifts back to Jongdae being stuck in the pod, and Junmyeon scowls.

“Get out of my head,” he hisses, but Jongdae only smiles back.

“You’re the one that let me in~” he sing-songs, and wills for the pod to go away, so it does, the lab shifting into park with bright sunshine and green grass that Jongdae can’t feel on his skin or beneath his feet. “Never realised that was a two way street, huh?”

“It’s dangerous to keep a link for so long…” Junmyeon says, mouth twisting, but Jongdae only pats him on the shoulder, consoling. He changes the weather into snow.

“I should wake up, shouldn’t I?” Jongdae asks, as the events catch up to him. He’s so _aware_ that he’s dreaming it’s almost surreal, controlling the world on a whim, but it doesn’t weaken or tip Junmyeon off his feet. Jongdae opens his mouth to catch a snowflake, but there’s no sensation of coolness or taste.

“They’re worried about you,” Junmyeon replies, touching the snow with an odd fascination to it, tilting his head. Snow is something Jongdae will miss; he wonders if other planets have it, if Baekhyun and Kyungsoo will take him to see it. “They don’t know if the eternity will kill you or not.”

“Of course it won’t,” Jongdae scoffs, standing up abruptly. “Do they really think I’d let myself be killed by that? After everything?”

“Well they’re not medical experts, are they?” Junmyeon replies wryly, as Jongdae sticks a tongue out at him. “Apparently you haven’t told them about your brother’s great medical discoveries.”

“We can’t all have had cute, smart healer boyfriends,” Jongdae counters, ignoring the latter half, and Junmyeon makes a stunned face at that. “Yeah, not great to have your mind read 24/7, is it?”

“Oh shut up,” Junmyeon replies, lazily reaching out to kick at Jongdae and missing terribly, causing Jongdae to cackle. “Go and reunite with your boyfriends already before they turn grey.”

Baekhyun as a silver fox, huh? It shouldn’t be as funny to Jongdae as it is.

“Fine, fine,” Jongdae says, whining. “But try and stay out of my head while I’m at it, you pervert.”

“Like I’d even _want_ to read whatever gross thoughts you’ll have--” Junmyeon mutters, as Jongdae promptly ignores that and thinks, _this is a dream_.)

 

 

 

 

 

Jongdae squints into the halogen lighting as his entire body aches, throbbing with pain. There’s a wad of blackblood stuck in his throat that’s begging to come out, but instead, Jongdae swallows it down.

As soon as he’s up, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are beside him adjacent to the bed, asking a thousand and one questions in common. He gives them the strongest pointed look he can muster, as Kyungsoo says something the same way someone might say _fuck it_ , and tackles Jongdae with a hug, which Jongdae eagerly responds to, wrapping his arms around Kyungsoo’s firm, metal body as Baekhyun quickly attaches himself to the cuddle pile too, blabbering at a thousand miles per hour.

Jongdae’s everything hurts, screaming out in pain as Kyungsoo and Baekhyun crush him in their embrace, but it doesn’t matter amongst all the kisses to the top of his head, from either one of them or maybe both. They’re both speaking in a language Jongdae doesn’t understand, but none of it matters, in hindsight, because the three of them are good at understanding each other in the strangest of ways.

Besides, it’s not like Jongdae needs to be a linguistic genius to understand the way they’re both saying _you’re home, you’re safe, you’re okay._

“I love you. I love you both so much,” Jongdae mumbles, close to tears, face buried into Kyungsoo’s neck, hands gripping onto Baekhyun’s tails. It’s irrelevant if neither of them speak or understand even a single word of Korean, because Jongdae can tell by the way they curl around him protectively just that little bit tighter, that they’d understood regardless.

 

 

 

 

 

XXX

“I’m sorry,” the grandmaster says, bowing in apologies as soon as the Good Doctor steps into the corridor, examining the shards of shattered glass that are scattered along the floor, still uncleaned. “But the specimen was stolen by a crew of highly skilled mercenaries and--”

She holds up two of her four hands, uncaring. She doesn’t want to bother listening to the fleudrian’s weak and flimsy excuses. At this stage, she wryly jokes to herself, maybe she should simply get used to the crews she hires betraying her. It’s not like it was difficult; all the thieves had to do was steal the artifact, so that the museum at the Capital could pretend it had been lost in the blackmarket forever, escaping public scrutiny while the Union could have it in their hands peacefully, to be delivered to their hidden lab on Cyrillia 5.

And yet, for some reason, the first bunch of thieves she’d hired came up with a moral compass, and now the grandmaster of a collector’s house proves to be no better. There’s only so many crews she can hire before the sheer value of the specimen becomes far too known --she’s already running out of time and money both, and the board is beginning to grow impatient.

The Good Doctor has always been good at what she does for her people and her galaxy, _Unity_ , so she’d known the minute the artifact had been uncovered on the dried-out remains of Terra that this would be her shot. The last Terran she’d had had been too recent, the blackblood in their veins too adapted and evolved to bear any similarities to the horror stories of old the last Terran had told her. Tales of how it had destroyed the population, embedding itself as a part of Terran society. As soon as you were born, you were infected, and the sickness --held down by medicine, of course-- became a simple side to everyday life.

However the virus hadn’t always been like that, at one stage thinning populations and spreading at a rate they couldn’t understand. Terrans had been rather advanced in their medicine --the usage of cryogenics, in particular, had the Good Doctor impressed-- so it was easy to imagine what the virus might do when introduced to another environment, an isolated, underdeveloped one, if the Good Doctor could edit it enough.

Because sickness isn’t common within Unity when medicine clears it so quickly, and she’d still never seen something as perfectly weaponised as this... blackblood. As soon as she’d heard that the most recent artifact had been carbon-dated at over 2000 bands, she’d known the specimen inside would have a form of the illness de-evolved enough to still be threatening, less reliant on Terran biology and immune systems, far more adaptable.

Examining the empty cage, the Good Doctor sees that the thin mattress is encrusted with black stains, and easily scrapes off some of this into a small tube she keeps within her inner lab coat pocket, screwing the cap on with a satisfied smile.

The grandmaster begins spouting more questions, and something about the specimen having been _killed_ , or something, but she silences him with a single look.

“No more excuses,” she chastises, watching as his slimy jaw snaps shuts. “None of that matters. I have everything I need right here.” She taps her breast pocket accordingly.

Because if there’s any colour that’s strong enough to deal with _Red_ , it’s black.


	9. Chapter 9

It turns out the whole, _being unable to communicate_ thing quickly grows frustrating, when Jongdae is so unable to talk to anyone aboard Sehun’s ship, aside from Junmyeon, who can only stand so much clinginess before he grows impatient. It’s not like Junmyeon wants to stand around and translate every word Jongdae says and vice versa when there are frankly more interesting things to do than play translator, so Jongdae spends most of his time sleeping or making pouting faces at Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, who will kiss it away instantly, but never anything more than that.

Sometimes he hangs out with Yerim, who he finds an odd sort of silent companionship with, or Sehun, who offers him comfort and kind smiles. Most of it though, he spends with Junmyeon, either wordlessly communicating with him inside their heads or simply sitting together when they both don’t want to dream, staring out at the stars and feeling the way they’re both thinking about just how small they are, and just how alone.

Except Jongdae isn’t alone. Because he has Junmyeon, and Sehun, and Yerim, and Jongin, and Baekhyun and Kyungsoo. And maybe even fucking Chanyeol.

But still, it kind of sucks, because Jongdae doesn’t understand any jokes, let alone make them, or have conversations or simply even fucking _thank_ the whole lot of them for saving his life. The most he’d managed is a few looks he’d hoped they’d understood and a couple of paraphrased apologies via Junmyeon, which he’d punched him for and said _I can read your mind, I know you’re half-assing this_.

Junmyeon manages to warn them about the buyer having been from the Union, although it surprises nobody else upon their ship, and Sehun keeps them both company when they refuse to dream with stories of Lanayra and Sehun’s family, how he’d been shipped off to the Capital as a young student, eventually becoming bonded in order to pay off his student loans, the lead bounty hunter of the squadron including Yerim and Jongin. He somehow manages to make it funny though, entertaining, and Jongdae and Junmyeon both take solace in his relaxing presence, even if his vines sometimes get a little too weirdly touchy-feely. Once he returns to pilot, though, it leaves Jongdae and Junmyeon on the observation deck, staring out at the stars and feeling the way each other feel how small they are, how alone. That, at least, was something they had in common. Without Junmyeon around to ground him, watch over him, Jongdae isn't sure in what state he would have been getting off the Ark, and the psychic link between them has its pros, here, because Jongdae knows Junmyeon feels the same way back.

Baekhyun and Kyungsoo quietly enter the deck, and wordlessly, Junmyeon leaves, allowing the three to have their time alone. They sit on either side of Jongdae, hugging him as he curls with his arms around his knees, and when Kyungsoo loops the ring-necklace back over Jongdae’s head he can’t help but dry-sob a little, so relieved to be home, allowing himself to be smothered in kisses.

At least, when Jongdae sleeps now, he no longer dreams.

So by the time they do reach Naeveria, it’s safe to say Jongdae is practically dropping to his knees and baring his neck the moment they’re back on the Moonlight. It doesn’t take long before a needle-gun is pressed into it, a stab of searing white pain ringing throughout his head, and then Baekhyun is saying, “Aaaaand that’s the last UTC we had. Lu Han is _so_ going to kill us.”

“I think he’ll be killing you guys for a lot of things,” Jongdae meekly offers, and then mutters _oomph_ as four pairs of arms are wrapped around his chest.

“I don’t think I’ve ever hated Korean so strongly in my life before,” Jongdae meekly jokes, while Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s arms just squeeze tighter.

“You’re an idiot,” Kyungsoo tells him, pulling back only to punch Jongdae’s shoulder with a metal hand, causing him to yell _ow_ and rub at the spot dejectedly. “Leaving without saying goodbye only to get fucking _captured_. Are you fucking kidding me, Jongdae?”

“How long has he been wanting to yell at me for that?” Jongdae asks Baekhyun.

“A few loops, give or take.” Jongdae laughs despite himself.

“I’m sorry,” Jongdae says, because he finally can now, with his own voice and his own words. “For everything. I really just-- sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kyungsoo relents, immediately softening. “I’m sorry we took so long to rescue you.”

“Yeah I um, kind of owe you my life for that,” Jongdae says lamely. “So uh.. Thanks?”

“‘Thanks’,” Baekhyun mimics, in a high-pitched voice that leaves Jongdae kind of offended since it’s meant to be his. “We saved your life and all you have to say is _thanks_ \--”

“Baekhyun,” Jongdae sighs, leaning forward. “Shut up.”

Kissing him is the number one way to accomplish that. Scientific fact.

Jongdae pulls back with a grin on his face as Baekhyun’s eyes flutter open as if he’s had the living daylight kissed out of him --which, for the record, he _totally_ had. Jongdae is feeling a hundred times better now that he can talk again, even if being allowed to eat and sleep and drink water normally over the last few cycles had helped the recovery too. It’s good to be back, but it comes with a few, minor drawbacks.

“I’m never leaving you guys again, okay?” Jongdae says. “That’s a promise.”

“Good,” Kyungsoo replies, which shocks Jongdae, momentarily, because he’d always figured Kyungsoo would be the level-headed one about this, try to talk Jongdae back into moving into hiding or whatever the fuck that had been about.

Jongdae smiles, but his worries temporarily ruin that. “I um,” he starts, fidgeting slightly. “I’m not sure how I’ll like, earn money, but--”

“Oh don’t worry about it,” Baekhyun says, waving his hands. “I was totally useless at the start, too. Turns out being a thief takes like, training?” Baekhyun smirks a little. “You can just do what I did at the start and be a glorified get-away driver.”

“You’re still useless now.” Kyungsoo flatly jokes, easily dodging the half-hearted swats Baekhyun aims at his head. “But Baekhyun is right, you shouldn’t worry about it,” he continues, turning back to Jongdae. “You can just ignore what we do for a living and be our live-in hot artist trophy-boyfriend.”

Jongdae snorts, but then pauses, genuinely considering it.

“I mean,” he replies, considering, frowning as he shrugs. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“I think we can worry about that bridge once we cross to it,” Baekhyun slyly notes, as his ears flick and he turns to greet a wary Sehun, carefully walking up the loading bay with Junmyeon in tow.

“Oh thank fuck,” Junmyeon says (with his mind, of course) and there’s a sharp, sudden pain in Jongdae’s head before a weird feeling of emptiness is left behind, like an odd sensation of… nothing. There are still parts of Junmyeon’s subconscious lingering behind that Jongdae knows won’t be disappearing anytime soon, and judging by the look on Junmyeon’s face, that had kind of been a two-way thing.

“You guys should get going,” Sehun starts, standing before them awkwardly as his fingers fiddle with each other. “I sent Jongin and Yerim on a grocery hunt and although it’s kind of a dick move to leave without saying goodbye,” can Jongdae seriously stop being subliminally berated for that. “It’s either that or Alcazar.” Sehun offers a small half-smile. “They _really_ want that bounty.”

“Wouldn’t be dogs elsewise,” Baekhyun awkwardly jokes, and Sehun gives him a hesitant, light piece of laughter, even if the thick air between them makes things strange. Sehun is, and always will be, Jongdae’s first friend in his newfound life --aside from his boyfriends, of course-- and he _had_ saved Jongdae and Junmyeon both, so Jongdae doesn’t think a simple _thank you_ is going to quit it.

Instead, Jongdae steps forward, and wraps his arms around Sehun’s middle.

“It’s called a hug,” Baekhyun helpfully explains, stage-whispering from behind Jongdae, as Sehun tenses. “Just go with it.”

Hesitantly, Sehun returns it, and Jongdae grins up at him, as Sehun’s unblinking eyes look down at him curiously before grinning right back.

“Thank you,” Jongdae says, because it feels wrong not to use his voice since he has it. “For everything. Ever. You’re… literally the best person in the galaxy.”

Sehun laughs disbelievingly. “Thanks,” he responds crudely, as they awkwardly break apart, Jongdae refusing to make any tree-hugging comparisons at this current point in time. “You gonna be okay?” He asks Jongdae, who nods in response.

“Yeah,” he replies, because he’s with Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, now, and will be for a very, very long time. “Will you?”

Junmyeon seems startled at the fact that Jongdae is addressing the question to him, or maybe just because he'd said it aloud, before nodding a little.

“Yes,” he responds, and his voice is so much softer when it isn’t berating Jongdae within the confines of his own mind. His neck-frills shiver slightly. “Other than my head, that is.”

“Junmyeon has a few off-planet friends he can go to for help between here and the capital,” Sehun shrugs. “Figured we could give him a lift.”

Junmyeon nods in affirmation, and Jongdae immediately knows the friends he’s talking about, knowing that they’re trustworthy, too. It’s only by fluke that Junmyeon had been one of the only Elidrians off-planet due to work for the harvest festival before the meteor impact --Jongdae knows that finding the few other survivors is beyond important to him, and gives him a nod to acknowledge such a thing. It’s funny, they can’t even read each other’s minds anymore, but still kind of just... understand.

“Well…” Jongdae says, lamely. “Be safe. Both of you.”

“Of course,” Junmyeon smiles, and it’s a strange thing. Kind of ugly, in a way, wrinkling up his face. “You three, too.”

“Obviously,” Baekhyun grins, obnoxiously slinging an arm over Jongdae’s shoulder who can only sigh and smile fondly --albeit reluctantly-- in response. Kyungsoo forms the Drovaryian sign of gratitude.

“Go,” Sehun says, and, as if to push away tears, he fucking _blinks_ , sheathes of wood quickly swiping over his glowing pupils. “Before this gets any harder.”

“Yeah,” Jongdae laughs, a little lamely, and then the loading bay doors are closing as Sehun and Junmyeon wave to them from the ground, Jongdae waving one last pathetic little thing before Kyungsoo’s flipping on the engines, and flying them off of Naeveria.

“Well, what do we do now?” Kyungsoo asks, breaking the awkwardly tense silence, and smoothing over what little cracks of pain had appeared after such a terrible farewell. At the very least, Jongdae still had Sehun’s number, sitting in one of the pockets of Baekhyun’s oversized jackets. He had a feeling that if Junmyeon ever wanted to speak with him --which he would, eventually, another something Jongdae just... knew-- he'd find a way.

“Aelia,” Jongdae says, and both of his boyfriends look at him, confused, for suggesting such a thing. “What?” He asks, rhetorically. “You’ll need to grovel for forgiveness from Lu Han, and I want to make sure my health is in check with Chanyeol after… everything.”

He desperately needs more nanobot pills before his body decides to break down again, but that was neither here nor there.

“Besides,” Jongdae continues, needing to cover up his own ruse. He doesn’t want to continue lying to Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, but he doesn’t need them to worry about him anymore, either. Junmyeon had told him to let go of his past, and maybe forgetting about blackblood altogether is a way to accomplish that. It’s not like anyone else in the galaxy cares about it. “We should have checked for STIs before.”

Kyungsoo chokes at that, as Baekhyun just bursts into laughter, tails swishing happily.

“Oh my gods, imagine going to Chanyeol for that,” he says, around a loud laugh, and Jongdae smiles in satisfaction.

“I’d rather die.” Kyungsoo flatly says, but judging by the look on his face, he isn’t joking. "They're not even common."

“What sort of alien STIs are there, anyway?” Jongdae asks, genuinely kind of curious, and Baekhyun gives him a look of disgust.

“You really want to talk about all the infections that’ll cause your dick to fall off _now_ ?” He wrinkles his nose cutely, before saying, _eugh_. “Not very romantic of you.”

Jongdae exchanges a confused look with Kyungsoo. “Were we having a romantic moment?” Kyungsoo questions, lips pursed together curiously.

“All our moments are romantic, we’re three in-love rebels constantly on the run. That’s the definition of romantic.”

Jongdae snorts. “Yeah, like Bonnie and Clyde with a plus one.”

“We obviously have no idea who you’re referring to, you know,” Baekhyun says, clicking his tongue in distaste. Jongdae refuses to give him the reaction he wants.

“They were thieves,” Jongdae explains. “Back on Earth, and they were a couple and stuff.” He pauses awkwardly. “They uh… got shot together, though, so we can skip that part.”

Kyungsoo frowns at that, and softly says, “Are you sure you want to stay with us?” The doubt laces through his voice and across his face, even if half of it is metal. “I mean it’s not-- you really could get shot--”

Jongdae snorts at Kyungsoo’s worry --even though he probably shouldn’t-- and gently kisses his frown away.

“I think we’ve already proved I’m safer here than anywhere else,” Jongdae says, smiling wryly. “Even if the buyer does think I’m dead.”

“ _Might_ ,” Kyungsoo corrects. “Might think you’re dead.”

“Semantics,” Jongdae teases, and only laughs as Kyungsoo sighs in exasperation, kissing him all over again.

“Wow I guess I’m just the third wheel huh--” Baekhyun begins monologuing, and Jongdae laughs against Kyungsoo’s mouth before turning around to shut him up the only way he knows how.

“You’re the worst,” Jongdae mumbles, as Baekhyun just grins satisfactorily against his mouth. “You’re lucky I’m keeping you.”

“I think you, my dear boyfriend, are the lucky one,” Baekhyun teases, and Jongdae can’t even come up with a retort for that because Kyungsoo is prying Jongdae away and kissing Baekhyun himself. The sight is so oddly… well, arousing, but simultaneously fills Jongdae’s chest with something like hot air, so warm and all-encompassing he wonders if he might start floating any micro-period now.

Baekhyun has a point, after all. Of all the people in the galaxy, Jongdae is so, so, so lucky to have found two who have showed him so much kindness, and patience, and tenderness and love, that even if 2000 bands ago, he was offered to never take his second chance, live out his life on earth blackblood or not; Jongdae isn’t sure if he’d take it, if it meant never experiencing this.

Because this -- _this_ \-- this is his life now. Him, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, the three of them. This is his new home. And Jongdae has a feeling that they’ll be together for a very long time.

For the rest of _their_ eternity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you actually made it this far, congratulations, really, and also sorry,,,,
> 
> while this fic is far from my favourite child, it's definitely the only one ive ever poured so much time and work and _words_ into. i think i only hate it because it stands to show just how much i'm lacking and how messy i can be but, ah, i can only get better by trying, right? maybe one day ill learn how to fill up my own holes, and how to fuckin... not procrastinate writing until im forced to cram to make the deadline -_-
> 
> thank you for giving my ugly little child a chance, it truly means a lot to me *-*

**Author's Note:**

> look at this wonderful beautiful [moodboard](https://twitter.com/exonautfest/status/939978724321177600) the mods made i am: In Love  
> 


End file.
